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um and i don't think either of us were super surprised by it it's been a tough couple of years um and parents have been working with their kids who are home it's not a normal thing i'm confident that they will continue to grow it's an improvement over our fall school which was 24. um and the teachers are working super hard with this we've also implemented some five synthetic awareness programs this year which will help us with this going forward this is first grade and it's the grade that we talk about the most these are the kids who last year did not get the kind of instruction that you would want it was hybrid learning they were in two days a week god bless the parents who tried to help their kids or mr tommy you can probably relate [Music] so this is our challenge group but again you see the in first grade there are four tests that they do one is auditory vocabulary which looks at do kids understand words when they don't have to read them nonsense word fluency where the letters are right but they don't make any sense can kids sound out of words where they have no queue i'm going to stop just for a second so we can kind of go into in first grade they really only look at two things oral reading fluency and that makes up the composite score or already influences what we're going to talk about from now on because it when kids reach out loud what happens is that they have to combine all those other skills they got to understand the letters and the sound they got to be able to recognize words without sounding it out the more you have to think about what you're reading the slower you're reading and so you can see our moral rating fluency percentile is 46 and that's the same thing as our early composite score and again that's not where we want our kids to be um i think that all things considered again this is an increase over the fall score all things being considered for on the right track but you guys deserve to know kind of what's going on there the other thing we start talking about in first grade are lexile scores aims web gives us if we do the role reading fluency test a less style score a left side score it's a number that indicates the complexity of reading material so the higher the number the more complex the reading material is and what some researchers did is they took like a million results from h and they norm so that you could look at a lifestyle score of 200 and you could say for first graders that's at the 50 53 time again we wanted to look at how many kids met or exceeded the winter lexile expectation in the 50th percentile in first grade it's a third one 38 percent sixty percent we're appointment in a year but we've got again this grade the grade that we're most concerned about 47 are more than a year behind most of those kids are scoring as beginner readers that's our focus group we're putting a ton of energy into that we're putting a ton of resources into that and it's it continues to improve but this is where we are right now second grade um again you see there are three things all three of these things now forwarding fluency really comprehension of okay where are combined and weighted fashion to give you the right composite score and you can see here i mentioned this in my report second grade brockton you know or we influenced the 60th percent of green comprehension 66 vocabulary 83rd percentile those are great um the overall percentile of 68 and for those of you i'm sure you found my report riveting and read everywhere um i commented i'm not really sure why that happened i was talking to some second grade teachers but they pointed out by sharing steve carroll is that this group of kids are second graders in both schools it's the first group of kids to have systematic explicit phonics instructions in both kindergarten and christopher so you look at our lexile results kids have never exceeded that second grade expectation 50th percentile 64 plus two minutes and three and more than you're behind just eight percent which statistically is kind of what you would expect there are some kids who are always gonna struggle kids who need specialized services this is what we want for everybody so that's kindergarten through grade two huh i'll stand in front of it all right this is my good side there are good scientists so we pick up the oral reading policy throughout you know and so second grade where we see the greatest strength there you know when we get into third grade they did not have the benefit of fundation's instruction before that we were strictly sticking with wells um with wonders rather so you see where over here this all looks pretty good and i can always brag about our reading comprehension because up until now when we got to the upper grades we really focused on are they understanding what they're reading but as we as we've dived deeper into this we realize that you know as they get into older grades the fluency he's getting is going to catch up yes with the lower grades that we've given them the skills they can compensate if they can't read really really quickly um but eventually that's gonna that's gonna become a struggle for them so here you look again where we're converting into a lifestyle score uh and you know we're we're pretty good because i want you to hold on to this number because as we as we go up these numbers change a little bit um but we are looking at 45 or half of when we get to grade four you see influencing keeps coming down a little bit and the students the number of students that are struggling keep rising a little bit um and you can see that reflected in the life sciences um this is not all doom and gloom and i also want you to know that we're doing things for these kids in third fourth and fifth grade we're not going back to teaching foundations we have read naturally we have different reading passages that we're doing these are tier two interventions and tier one interventions that we're providing um but the work that we're doing in k-102 the the the work that we do with integrity foundations that's going to impact this in the long run we're not going to need as much intervention um and suddenly in grade 5 this is where i think it's it's highlighted the most where we have the most number of students that are below on the left side so we have those students in our rti process we we're using read naturally and other programs like that we're working on that they're comprehending um but we realize we recognize that this is going to be a problem i think the other reason to to bring this up and talk about this now is because you voted on the budget at the last meeting that i came to and one of the things that we were talking about was that a need for a literacy coach they think this is this is an area that you know literacy coach can help strengthen and improve the work that we're already doing we are seeing games from the fall to the winter um but we want to see more because we wanted we weren't just coming up to the hunter to hunter ready reading fluently as well as comprehending everything there and prepared for future success we will take any other questions yes um so you were talking about fundations is that a new program that our district it's new to us uh we rolled it out in kindergarten two years ago right just briefly yeah i know what it is because of my kids but i didn't realize that it was new to our district i just thought it was something that everybody was doing no yeah that was pretty good yeah it's great i think it works i mean i think it's great my daughter in preschool already knows all the letters because of foundation it's not because of it but um i didn't realize that it was new and it's already paying dividends when you look at that with that second grade is it something that you can use in fifth or it's it's because it's so basic is there is there like a more advanced part of that concept i don't i don't know that you could apply to like those older grades so if we do it right when they're in third grade they have all the skills they you know we do have other you know foundations as part of wilson so we have that as wilson as an intervention so if kids have received three years of it is they're not progressing you know we have that tier two tier three intervention for it um but if we do our job right we might do well and we shouldn't need it if you're in fourth and fifth grade it's just struggling with sounding outwards or other problems it's not a lack of instruction it's it's going to be more of a reading issue yeah you hit on the budget at the end and i guess the question for you did you break this data when you had your meetings with towns or do you explain it to them like this like the low scores before can we go back i didn't think i asked i mean but we have the system but we have the coaching budget the coaches in the budget yeah those are but i know there's you know there's some debate back and forth little budget as we were talking um keeps you there you know so there's always a need for someone who's who focuses just on the literacy part of be in the classroom and working with teachers because they lose you know people's focus there's somebody there so whether you're in the 20th percentile here the center one of the challenges with the work that hasn't are doing right now is you know we're nice guys and people like us from teachers what teachers look for somebody who has done the work stood in the room they've done the iron stuff because there's that level of respect that you know teaches a corporate child that's one of the essential reasons why joe is so successful he's taught for years i guess i i wonder if there's enough time in the school day to improve the results we've seen as you've shown given other demands on teachers time and other things that children usually are to that point i have two questions do we expect that some of these first graders in particular will be kept back in order to get them caught up a second question is do we offer any after school ela programs to help extend our instructional time so that some of those students would have an option of continuing to learn beyond three o'clock good questions uh let me start with the second one um we don't currently have any after school programs my experience with them especially in the lower grades is cancer cause by the end of the day and so it's not necessarily a great use of time what i can say is we've prioritized our literacy blocks of the day so we try to make sure those we maximize those and we try to stay away from those trying not just um schedule assemblies and different special events during that um i think you know john speak with the with the new with the implementation of these programs that we've been doing um i think that's going to go a long way into into addressing and closing that gap um yeah you're right part of the challenge is david they have phonics construction is most powerful with our youngest kids who are the quickest to get tired and just to go back to the part of the question retention the results of retention are almost universally awful um and it doesn't really help to we're going to have to with that group of children especially keep redoubling our efforts around instruction but to do the same thing over the social consequences just should we consider opportunities to offer instruction in the summer for some of those children who might benefit from continued ela instructions post june it was a tough sell this year we did the summer work last year and ace is a huge proponent of this and it was hard to get people to come in yeah but if i started the score for my kid and saw that they're behind probably gonna have a different reaction because i think we got invited to the summer program with an incoming kindergartner i had no reason to to put him into that and take him out to camp citizen right but if i instead saw that hey he's behind or there's an opportunity here and there's a program i can enroll him in even if i have to pay a fee for that program i think that would be something a lot of families would consider if it was available and certainly one district-wide or remotely probably people that we are considering we can't consider for the summer for those students so in fact we just talked about it recently ace and john other students that they would want to target or grade levels in particular so i think the results of the data they're showing to perhaps their target audience is those questions yeah i think their need is clearer now than it was yes yeah that's what's spread anticipated question yes every time you do enjoy testing at the end of your level reports last year we got a grant for the celebration academy and it was for the elementary schools and also we offered for the middle school really to get participants so we put the funding that we have received we got so many students coming into kindergarten not so much for the academics for that to come into to do the academic work for the social emotional piece of it just getting the experience of being from school we end up we had one class set aside for kindergarten we ended up with three classrooms of students coming in for them now this is such a short time you know a half day weeks but this is something we can certainly have been actually starting to talk about i think too this is an important piece too removing the mask is huge so i think the kids are going to be you know all right i mean i think this first grade group is the hybrid group um it's very very very difficult those teachers so i think that lasts gone and also the thinking that this has changed over the past few years when we launched march 20 we left school you know the conferences that i attended at the wpa spots assessment organization and then you focus on those areas but that's because it goes from march to september as that as we extended into the year and then two years the thinking on how to catch students up this completely changed they're not recommended you're doing it because so many kids have lost so much that the the current thinking on how to catch students up is just what they're doing they do it within the context of the standards they're working on so if it's if if they see a gap and standard they're in fourth grade and they see a gap in the third grade standard they teach it in fourth grade they attack exactly so um and that has changed there's no question the students have lost something but you know we again that's when we decided our focus was before the personnel and not the program because we have them um that's that's part of the reason [Music] for you guys do you have any the information how does this year's great one that you focused on i think it was like 63 or from a year more than a year do you have comparisons to the first grades precoc harder to do because there's nothing before first grade you do i mean like like you know how does that get different yeah okay yeah and then kind of to julie's point i mean we got our own individual scores and this was you know months ago like two months ago i've noticed in the past week plus at home reading is like through the roof compared to one of the february so i i agree with you i think it will come around but i don't envy them couldn't take some work that could be [Music] um [Music] the athletic director and myself um wanted to bring forward a school broadcast program um and this is nfhs and it is it's powered by a company called play on most of the schools the midwatch facility and really most of the schools across the state have a school broadcasting program it really came to the forefront here at tohonto um during coven when fans were not allowed in games and um he basically had to beg parents and and other volunteers to be able to videotape basketball games um last year so family and friends could could view it um and so matt reached out to um to nfhs um and they have provided us with a um with a contract and you know what this contract basically states is that there is no cost to the school the company provides all of the camera they provide the maintenance um they work with our technology department for the wiring et cetera and basically um it is it will be a five-year contract this is why it's been brought forward um to all of you because any contract over three years has to be brought forward to the school committee um and the cost basically is um 10 there's a subscription so parents or grandparents or um you know students other family members you know one can't come to the game but want to watch um they can get a subscription um and ten percent of the uh proceeds of the subscriptions comes back to toronto comes back to the school as well we can also use this service for videotaping graduation inside in the gymnasium as well we are in talks um you know but this will be for down the road to try to get cameras out at the softball field hockey fields as well as the the baseball and soccer fields um but you know i think it's you know one thing that copa did is it really opened our eyes um up to you know the technology and the power of you know technology and being able to get um you know these games and you know these broadcasts out to parents and grandparents and you know anybody really any relative across the united states um they would be able to watch their um their loved ones play as well um and so you know i think it would be really beneficial to the school um to be able to to go forth i believe um i know you're gonna ask me this i can't think of it off the top of my head i don't know if you remember but i think the cost is it's i think it's like 10 a month it's a pretty it's a pretty minimal cost i mean i think you have to pay five dollars to get into a basketball game for one game so um you know so i think it would be definitely worth um you know it's a honda looking into as well there also is a feature whereas you know uh you know oftentimes we have um somebody videotaping for the coaches uh to do replays with the teams um this would be available to coaches as well um who would just contact uh the company and saying hey listen you know we need to take from you know march 8th um can you can they send that to us and they send that information to us um as well and we we've set the contracts while legal constantly and um so he looked at it he got not concerned with just a few questions that i passed on to diane and matt it was just things about you know the schedules have to be to the company within certain modern days things like that and really the only thing we're responsible for is the infrastructure is that we have the technology department sort of rigged up the system in the end of the games but we wouldn't run a dedicated line and it was costly i talked to technology today so that's about a thousand bucks but that's it which would come out of technology so that's that's really the only cost for us and and then um uh just sending parents information is there is audio with that right yes yes it's not the video that's the privacy issues it's the regal statute um why is and we've done all that stuff resumed when we started so we got that covered but other than that there wasn't anything in the contract that was going to be a legal issue as far as concerning itself so you've already got the rig set up is this something just the wiring they'll come in and you know they have the components we put something in it temporarily because they were taping games but we would want to run like a dedicated wide it's not like sort of makeshift well that's how i was going to ask you what have you been doing so far can we not just do something ourselves so basically it's getting somebody to stand there with a tripod and a camera and do this so that's what they'll come and do oh no these these are actually mounted cameras um that will you know you give them the game schedule um and basically they do all of the filming um for us using the cameras that they had mounted a lot of schools sorry a lot of schools um you know use huddle which is which is a very similar company and they use it for their football is this company you mentioned it's free because we the schools will get a ten percent of whatever this experience is the company allowed to do anything with that video do they sell any ads on the video or anything like that so um any ads so we would we could we don't have to but we could sell ads and um you know you know if you you have a company and you want to advertise on during our to hunter basketball games you would you know you would be um required to pay a fee you get a certain percentage of the fee and then the company gets the other percentage they do not put any of their you know any other type of um you know um commercials or anything on um our video games is that mine so these are the [Music] so what if you what if you can't beat the commitments like i'm looking at one of them i think it's from legal the school must provide game schedules 60 days prior yeah to the start of the sports seasons uh do you guys i mean i haven't yeah yeah so i mean believe it or not our um fall sports schedules the deadlines for the miaa i mean we have to make those schedules in the spring of the year you know so matt piccardo right now is okay so you do yeah yeah yes it is interesting okay yeah that's good and then so everything else that's on there if we get out of it early it's two thousand five hundred dollars for early termination b huh that's fine um [Music] yeah i mean my only thing would be i i would and if you say you could watch i'll watch youtube schools are doing it if it you know is it glitchy does it work you know is it something that's well reviewed with these other schools before you get into a five year contract with them yeah a lot of other schools have had it for for years you know we're one of just a handful of midwestern schools that don't have any form of broadcasting of genes yeah yeah i love the idea of the broadcasting games i think that's great well a lot of people especially that mccover even though we don't have to wear masks we won't come grandparents he just wants to gain from their house now so yeah that's a big advantage no i agree with you jeff i guess you know i just want to make sure that if they're paying for you know foreign no so that's why we have to provide the schedules um including the times so you know it turns on and you know in game time when we say it turns on and when you know and when it turns off um so you know that's why they require because they need to make sure that you know they have the manpower to be able to you know provide you know all of the live broadcasting um and so they need to schedule that far in advance to be able to put it into their systems so that you know the cameras are turning on and off can easily they want to review films and turning with their athletes do that yeah so all that they do is they have um you know the athletic director said the athletic director hey you know i want a copy of that um you know can we get a copy and he sends the information and they send it is there any uh like play-by-play commentary and are you doing any outdoor sports as well there is no there's no play-by-play commentary it's just basically it was just videos so we right now we're focusing on um indoor you know the um outdoor for the fieldwork in softball and for the the soccer and um baseball and track and field um there would be you know i would think um a larger cost associated with that on because of the internet in [Music] the easier there then up there so the contract just covers the indoors just just covers the um the gymnasium not only the sports but we also you know if we wanted to you know again um broadcast graduation you know typically we do it you know joel delay and it's telecom and take graduation and then they you know upload it they do it so it could actually be live so be a relative in california they can watch your graduation yeah that's great school choice recommendations um so the uh the 2022-2023 um school year i am um making a recommendation that um our incoming sixth grade is pretty small it's a small group for um for both berlin and boylston is that right have more the since in the fifth grade then we are slowly but surely overtaking quotes i thought i'm not the only one so because of the small um group and there is you know i clearly can't count i'm off by one but um i'm recommending seven um school choice students for the incoming sixth grade um that would be a total of oh sorry an additional eight students um so that would be bring that class size to 76.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so let's start with the first one those were attached to the agenda i will entertain a motion to approve the regular session minutes for july 13th oh i'm sorry miss ammeral i need to roll call you in because you are also a member of the equality subcommittee sorry yeah okay um i will entertain a motion to approve the regular session minutes for july 13 2021.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
john were you kind of advocating that maybe you look at this as like a capital improvement scenario where you model you take take these competing ideas maybe min max at lesley and figure out what the best solution is because it's not apparent when you just look at the numbers on slide 21. um would you advocate that that happened very quickly here to help facilitate that i think i think i mean my recommendation to staff would be that staff does that and presents that to council when they make a final recommendation i think we could still vote i mean this would be my my but this is up to the this is up to the body um that i think we can still vote on a general uh resolution of support which is basically the way this is is worded um and we can still process tonight because otherwise if we wait um we since we only meet monthly this is not going to get in front of of council so i would recommend that you know this is something that we generally want to support and some of the details need to be worked out by staff um in conjunction with city leadership and council as to what exactly is the best combination of solar installations put it that way you see you want to put the resolution back up okay so we have that and then the operational cost savings uh what i would propose is that we leave the wording as it is and that staff work on trying to come up with some figures so that that's quantified for council um when council considers this against other alternatives how does that sound yeah we have so the question really becomes on final design so you're right i want to go to council happy to put those in and it's different because it's not one fund right water fund has its own fund general fund has its own fund so it really does depend on final design but great point yep yep can we get a motion on this does anybody move to consider the resolution in a second and then we can have further debate i should have done that first sorry i moved to consider this resolution and a second from so we have a a motion from commissioner garcia in a second from commissioner peck and commissioner juno uh i apologize that i um sort of reversed the order of this but do we have any other comments or uh questions with regards to the resolution seeing none uh let's take a vote then all those in favor of approving the resolution as it now stands in front of us as opposed to the way it's uh was posted in legistar um everyone that's in favor say aye and raise your hand hi and all those opposed and any abstains commissioner kerber who is a homeland employees so thank you very much i thought about that early and forgot so thank you so we have one abstention and um otherwise i'm unanimously approved so i miss you get to count on that very good okay one down two other topics to go so uh missy um or do we turn it directly over to uh zach for the green rental uh housing presentation yeah i'll take it to zach i just want to frame that this is an action that is an a20 under our energy efficiency strategy three category um this is something that's really really important as i know uh some of our speakers mentioned because we have a lot of renters in the community and we have a really strong foundation around rental inspections that we can build upon and so i just want to take a moment um also thanks to me for the great work he's doing but also turn to zach and really appreciate the national level leadership that he's bringing to this discussion and thinking creatively so uh zach's been leading a task force of stakeholders you are the first public engagement around this topic officially starts tomorrow so you are uh his dry run and with that uh zach can you tell us a little bit about the work on grade rental housing certainly um good evening commissioners it's a pleasure to be here thanks for having me back this time to talk about a different building policy and this time it's focused on rentals let's see here i'm going to assume you can see my screen please stop me if you cannot but the name for this policy is the imaginative and inventive green rental housing so let's get into it i'm going to start with some background about why the green rental housing program has been an area of focus for the office of sustainability and innovations i'll discuss how the current policy recommendations came about and then we'll look at what the policy recommendations are um including what that the timeline has been and is going to be and what upcoming engagement we're doing um also just to clarify um the where that i put in there is a bit of a misnomer it's mostly all virtual it just i wanted to wear in there it fit i had the why how everything else so uh moving on um excuse me to set the stage for this conversation it will help to identify a few things one is that when examining the greenhouse gas emissions that ann arbor is responsible for according to our most recent inventory we see that about two-thirds of those emissions come from buildings and when we examine the residential buildings in ann arbor we find that more than half of all the housing units available are currently rented and finally there are no um there are currently no existing rental housing initiatives related to climate change specifically and so with these in mind um when the a20 plan was developed and action specifically targeted at rental efficiency was included under strategy three and as missy uh just mentioned strategy three is broadly to improve the energy efficiency of our buildings citywide but that's not the only 820 alignment the green rental housing program also helps in a way fulfill the first action listed under strategy 2 which is to get off of fossil fuels completely and we must electrify wherever possible to fully realize a20 um and just briefly while it might feel redundant for this audience i want to state for those who might be watching and aren't already familiar that a20 is ann arbor's plan to achieve a just transition to carbon neutrality by 2030 and it was unanimously adopted by city council on june 1st of 2020 so uh we have not only a climate imperative to support these strategies but also a local directive from our leaders okay so how did this come about um before we even started designing ann arbor's green rental housing program our first step was to understand as much as possible about how to build such a program and so over a year ago we participated in a rental housing cohort with rmi formerly rocky mountain institute to specifically examine policy pathways for rental policies since then we've also participated in a rental efficiency learning group this is actually still ongoing with the usdn and ac triple e which is the american council for an energy efficient economy um and um so we wanted to learn as much as possible about what what it takes to to get a policy like this off the ground and for it to be as effective as possible um concurrently during those cohorts and beyond we also examined how other cities across the country developed their rental programs where they exist or where they developed efficiency programs and their housing programs and what their lessons learned were we we looked at what they learned and from their experience and growth about how to best leverage our program i will note that there were some cities that used things that weren't specifically applicable to ann arbor but we still were able to learn from those programs and adapt them for what makes more sense here in ann arbor so once we were equipped with what we had learned through that previous groundwork we began looking more closely at the particulars here in ann arbor and this really helps paint the picture so some of the information that we found were that there are about 31 and a half thousand units rental units specifically that are spread across 8 500 properties when we look at those properties the median year built for those is 1964 and some of those properties date back to the 1850s and so that means that a vast majority of the rentals that are on the market right now are were built and a time before modern building codes um a couple of other things to note is that um over half of all the rentals are single property owners um and then just to kind of help round out the picture through in there that um how how a lot of those rentals are managed so um about 40 of them all are self-managed and about 60 of them hire a manager of some sort um and so as we explored some of the learning groups um we also looked at other cities um and then we examined ann arbor um and then i would start to then it was time to start building our own program and so we invited representatives from a broad spectrum of perspectives to partake in this task force there were tenants there that included the inter-cooperative council the ann arbor tenants union the housing caucus of geo the graduate employees organization we also had landlords that included the washington area apartment association avalon housing there were representatives from multi-family properties and from greek housing properties and this group convened over eight months starting last june um and met through just this january um and so here's kind of a quick overview i'm gonna dive into each of these but these are these are the primary policy components that this task force uh developed through lots of discussion and um so we'll get into those first being the occupant weatherization and i appreciate the question that uh preceded this presentation um yes it is already in the code uh i unfortunately am unable to speak to why it is not why it feels like it's not enforced but i do want to highlight that this is not intended to be a primary driver of the success of this program the other policy components that i am about to unveil are you will see going to be where the greatest impact comes from the occupant weatherization policy component was was tied in because the rentals right now are on a two and a half year cycle so if this is passes council and goes into effect on january 1st of 2023 that means that there will be some rentals that between now and the time that they are inspected on their natural cycle will wait three years before any of these um policy elements would be uh enforced and therefore this is sort of a bridge to gap that um and what it specifically allows is for tenants to do either temporary or permanent weatherization in the in the unit where it needs to be done without concern of penalty and this was brought up during the task force by some tenants that expressed experiences with certain landlords that left them feeling like they would be penalized either through their um forgive me um security deposit or through extra charges at the end of their lease for having installed these these measures and so this is just a basic protection for those occupants who do want to do some basic weatherization and that's pretty much occupant weatherization so we'll dig in here a little bit to a little bit more of the meat of the program one high impact component is going to be focuses on the efficiency of the appliances that are in the unit and so this policy component sets a minimum standard for appliances um there will be a the approach to getting these replaced is called time of replacement the deadline for full replacement is 20 30 so it currently gives about eight years for landlords to upgrade their appliances but in the meantime you will be required to replace them with energy star rated appliances as they go out so either through age or regular wear and tear if a furnace or a water heater or another appliance is being replaced anyway um this requires that it be replaced with the energy star rated model um the reason this was incorporated is because a majority vast majority of building source carbon emissions come from the energy that is required to heat our space and our water in in residential spaces that can account for upwards of 60 of the the total um energy use and so uh this is a high leverage uh policy component to to bring that energy down and to reduce the load on the energy on the grid as we electrify but also makes it more affordable by reducing the energy costs for tenants next up is an efficiency checklist there are two different pathways that landlords can pursue rental efficiency and one of them is by following this prescriptive checklist which it sets an energy efficiency target for rentals it also gives landlords choices and certain flexibilities in how they can achieve these targets there is we are lucky in ann arbor um missy mentioned also that uh we have an existing rental housing inspection program here in ann arbor um but primarily they include safety components um i'll show you an example here of this is just a snapshot of the existing pre-inspection checklist just to kind of give you an example of the types of things that are already included it's kind of hard to read here so don't don't strain your eyes too much but uh what you you can see here are things that are targeted at basic safety like storage restraints near combustion appliances uh that makes sense uh making sure there are secure locks on the doors that makes sense and while these are certainly important and they're on this checklist for good reason perhaps you can see that they don't think that this existing checklist does not currently include things like energy efficiency and electrification both of which have great impacts on the comfort and affordability of rentals for the tenants so um that's uh the prescriptive checklist is one way to do it i'm going to hop over to another screen here to give you an idea of what is on the prescriptive checklist and holler if you can't see this but um this is a long checklist i'm going to go through it briefly just to give you an idea of what the landlord could see if this is the pathway that they choose there are point values assigned to each action item that are on this list and those point values were chosen to reflect the difficulty and or cost with executing that item and this checklist calls currently for a minimum point value of 65 points there are over 173 possible points that that that any particular unit could achieve um a lot of this prescriptive pathway is is based on um on code codes that are already in existence or have been written as model codes um including several that are listed here and we included on this checklist an option or an exemption if you will for having met any of these existing certifications so that's if you have a passive house uh certification you have exceeded or met all of the things that are on this prescriptive pathway we won't require you to do this checklist if you can show your passive house certification for instance and so any of these others would also qualify but let's uh let's take a look at few a few of these items so here's a section focusing on insulation for instance um insulation in the attic in the exterior walls in the basement crawl space um what the requirement would be and the the point value and and you can tally up your own score at the bottom what you see here is the maximum possible uh and i want to explain that that says nine and if you were to take out a calculator and add up all of these numbers above it you would get a number greater than nine however um you wouldn't be able to do that on this checklist because you wouldn't get a point let's say if you had r50 in your uh in your unit you would get three points for r50 not one point for our 30 and then two points for r38 and then another three points for our 50.
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the difference between the two is the 478 000 rubberizes the entire area it goes building the building end to end i don't believe that's needed because i don't believe that this area needs to be we could save a little bit of money uh 30 000 35 000 by just turfing this and everything so my recommendation would be to go that way in talking with elc it helps from motor and sensory [Music] skills in order to have a contrast here also on everything you will see in design of this just let me kind of touch on this so this is an entire play area that is designed ada we have put colored areas because we can tell children go to the purple area go to the blue area go to the yellow area and then this is kind of a ball play area an open area where the where the children can play and then you also have an outdoor teaching area over here that they could take and teach kids there and then under the shade you'll see some uh houses and things i honestly don't know because i don't want to but they're there and those are things that they wanted you also see some benches here that we're going to put in and our pto has asked if they could donate any money to it and so i'm working with them actually that they can work on donating some of the benches and then we'll put a recognition a little recognition plaque on there that says donated by pto 2022 or something like that so we're working on that also you'll see these here these are just kind of little shade areas that'll kind of shade the area that is in there too everything that is right now in the current area all of these actually all the trees and everything those are all coming out on that because it'll make us maintenance free in there really the only maintenance to those surfaces the rubberized surfaces is really kind of blowing them off with a little leaf blower that's it really that's all i have to do uh for it there is a 10-year guarantee for that surface uh i believe no i'm sorry i think it's a seven-year guarantee for the surface a 10-year guarantee for the astral turf that is out there all of the equipment is actually guaranteed uh between 10 years and 100 years actually uh one of the things and you know one of the questions is do we save the equipment that is currently here go out there actually there are bolts that are exposed out there and nowadays when you install these all the boats are hidden it's a safety feature so my recommendation when we started doing this if we're going to do it let's do it right let's get current equipment in there so it's all safe for our kids okay so questions i'll open up gee i have two sure how are you providing shade when you call these shaded areas if there aren't trees how are we providing shade so one of the things you'll see in the diagram is these areas here these little like fans that are here triangles those are kind of shaded areas also that'll kind of shade some of that but we're also keeping the main shade out there that sale that is currently out there now okay because that came that was part of my next question that came from a grant or something i believe a few years ago yes we also got some equipment at that time because parents there was a big weekend thing where people came and helped us assemble that yes you're saying that all the equipment that's there now is going to be donated yes who's making that decision of donating it where it's going um i could find out where it's going and bring it to the board and let them know okay i would like to see it stay as close to home as possible we have a lot of needy sure day cares and things around here and and some of the equipment is quite new i think that was only about three four years ago that some of that i think it is yes um and i would like to see it put to use in our community if we can okay yeah i'll be more than happy i can talk and find out i know when i when i talk to burke they have actually a company that comes in and removes it and then donates but i can find out where it's going and i can you know ask them or tell them that i want to donate it somewhere within one of our communities you know i think i think the other thing if you do know someone that wants it you know let me know and and i can always work with them and get it out i don't want to be involved in getting the equipment out that's what i don't want to do because there's liability things and all of that stuff so yeah and costs and so if somebody wants it you're more than happy now i don't know what it's going to take to get it out to be honest with you i don't know that you know that so but that's something yeah i'll be happy to i have two questions yes the first question is 10 to 100 years how how's that determined great question dr hall but as i looked at their documentation so there's a hundred year warranty on aluminum and steel upright posts there's a hundred year limited warranty i mean it's i don't know who determines it but that's what it is they're specific to each what is warrantied 10 years on certain things this is 100 years on some of the uh or 15 years on the bolts i mean it's pretty specific on what is being warranted you can read that mr brown will still mr brown will still be on the board yeah mr brown will be on the board so he'll take care so my other question is in regards to i'm not like one of these save the earth type people but the trees can they be replanted somewhere or do they just have to be uprooted and destroyed i mean i can find out i'd have to talk to i could talk to an arborist about that and find that out i'm not i'm not sure that you have to dig don't recall if all of them are alive right now i i don't know that uh because i can't recall that but i can check all that out and see it's getting them through the building too i think it's what you said yeah we'd have to go up and over on all that stuff if this is approved is this a uh 2022 summer yes it would be 2022 it would take probably about six to eight weeks so the plan would be to start this uh as soon as school is out which is basically june 1st and be ready to go by august 1st yes and they're aware of that right they are aware of that yes yep that's why i would want to bring it to the board now so that we can start the process of the equipment and all that the other thing i will mention about the equipment too is all of it is being purchased through a co-op so bidding does not need to happen it's already been bid through it's called omni which used to be u.s communities that have dealt with before so everything has already been bid and everything you know ken can you tell me again where is the funding coming from sure sure mr brown so we found out and we did not budget for this but we found out that there was a carryover in idea grant money that happens from year to year of 1.2 million dollars that the district was allocated we found that amount out i don't know how long we found that out [Music] november december we found that out so the question is is what are we going to utilize that for because if you don't utilize it they're going to take it away from you because it's carryover money it's an addition to our other idea grant money we have all right this is just money that's built up over the years the difference with idea money and title one money is idea money you can continue to carry over and that with like title one money you can only carry over so much at a time in that so this is money that has been built up so we had a discussion about you know this project and what i was thinking of doing is trying to use to use the ide a carryover money to pay for this however because we have regular students that would utilize this when you use idea money you can only have special ed students utilizing whatever you use that money for example when we bought us if you remember we bought a school bus using idea funds only special ed students can utilize that bus we cannot utilize that for let's say uh the softball team the baseball you know to make trips so in order to pay for this then what we will do is or what we've already done actually is we are moving 600 approximately 600 000 in salaries special ed salaries right now to be reimbursed through the grant through 600 000 of the 1.2 million dollars this year we'll get that money so they're going to give us you know that's 600 that's 600 then with that with the money that that frees up in our general budget we will then use that money to pay for this so in essence what happens is i've taken 600 000 in expenditures out have added the revenue so i've taken that out i'm just going to be replacing it with 448 000 so the 600 000 thousand dollars that you had budgeted for salaries as expenditures you're offsetting this with the grant money yes sir so our balance or deficit is going to be that much less or because you you didn't expect when you shared with the board the budget that included that six hundred thousand dollars did not include that money why not which isn't well that's what i'm saying you just found out about this in november but you the budget came to the board in august and said or september so those expenditures for the special ed staff members was budgeted right yes yes yes right so you did so we knew about that yesterday so what i'm saying is so now we expect to see it more of a surplus or offset of those expenditures yeah there's actually you know the net result is going to be a surplus of of 150 000 dollars when you're done when i'm done with this whole thing don't have to pay for it if the yes okay so my last question is that this i i'm going to just say id no matter if you say i d e a still id like t d okay id sure the id money that you're looking as a grant and it can be used on special ad and certain things only is this our top priority that it could be used on um i i think that's a great question i think there has been a and again i can talk to ms perkins about this um i think there's been some studies that she is doing to see if there are any other needs in special ed that need to be done i do think i will say this i do think a priority is our courtyards all of that that's so nice yeah i think just go back make sure i as a board member i will just make sure that that is you guys from your team you know we looked at all angles and this is in fact our top priority to utilize this money yeah the thing with you know seeing i'll tell you what makes this project unique is if we were to put in because one of the things i weighed mr brown was community use of playgrounds okay but one of the things that's unique with elc is the fact that even if we were to put this out and i'm gonna say this way and i thought outside our walls if we put the playground we still have to fence it off and keep it closed off because it's elc and that's what the code says and that's what the grant says so the interior here is a perfect place for this type of program i think in our other courtyards we look at making outdoor classrooms using astroturf like that little seating area that we have it would i think it'd just be really cool in some of our in our courtyards even in our elementary schools to make outdoor classrooms turf all of those so we don't have the maintenance anymore we don't have to you know we won't have drainage issue because all of this turf is drainable uh you know that and so i think i think that's what the future holds it could be a lot less money doing it but i think making outdoor classrooms so the kids can go outside when they're in the classroom they're or in the courtyard then in the classroom they're secure also from a safety standpoint and i think that's really cool and if you look at if you look at the majority of elc there's a lot of kids that we bring in that we have that have uh walkers or like different things that right that's not compliant yeah that that is not compliant yeah and i like this just because it touches all the you know all the kids from all the communities will go through this and utilize this i think that's really good i'm just glad you see turf is the way to go you know me right now don't you if you know what i'm talking about i know what you're talking about hey dr hall that's that's the beginning that's the start that's our experiment okay thank you thank you ken thank you thank you very much good job okay next up teaching and learning 2022 2023 calendar discussion fabulous ms perkins yeah it's here good evening to our board to our students family staff dr cara i have one agenda item this evening we're coming to you with our draft calendar for the upcoming 22 23 school year we wanted to let you know that the committee met hold on let me take this off the otl team and the committee met and you wanted some information on how we make the decisions about the calendar so this calendar that we're presenting this evening um will be uh kind of a two-year consideration so because of construction the calendar that we present this year and the calendar that we present for next year will really look close to the same we've balanced out the trimesters we put in the concerns about construction for the next two years we did put in a volunteer professional development day we would like to train all staff on a volunteer basis even though they would they would also get paid for but it would not be a mandatory training so we put in a day for that in case we need to do training we looked at our new higher orientation elc has a separate calendar they operate uh during the same time periods but their days look different at the high school we will start our ninth graders on the first two days when students return and then on that monday we will have the 10th through 12th grade come in so k-9 will start on that first day which is august 25th we have two institute days built in we're able with this calendar to get our high school students finished before we go into winter break for their first semester we also have to consider that with our nyp program at the middle school that we have to get in 50 odd days of instruction so we put that consideration in as well as the hours that the students need for drivers education we built in a back to school night as well as we put in our graduation dates for middle school and high school this year in illinois we will have election day on november 8th we are now required to have that day as a day off in the past we had taken pulaski day as a floating holiday and maybe it's sometimes veterans day but we are not allowed to do that without having a public hearing so those dates are back on the calendar when they are to be held we have our winter break and return to school we have our spring parenting conferences and early dismissal days this year we came to the board and asked the board to give us some extra school improvement days because of the pandemic we are going back to our traditional days which looks like two school improvement days a month and we took in the feedback from parents with those early dismissal days to try and make them as consistent as we could on the same days of the week to help families with their planning and then we will end on february i'm sorry janu uh june 9th and then we had 16 members on that committee and don can we bring up the actual calendar does the board need to see that questions yeah yeah so you said you you this year the teachers got extra days to help you know after the pandemic so now do we take that is that taken away and now they're only going to get two a month so we traditionally have done two a month and this year we went up to three to four a month so we are going back to our traditional twice a month for school improvement days has the feedback from the teachers have we have we asked them i mean i would assume i didn't see the list um but are you know do they look at that to make sure that they're that we're okay to go back she's on the committee again yeah so on the committee we have 11 teacher members and two acme members as well as three administrators on that committee okay yeah okay uh the other thing is is it is the is everything being late just purely because of construction is at the theory because i mean we're starting and i mean getting out june 9th is pretty late i mean this year i think we're out before memorial day that would be two weeks after essentially uh is that purely based is that is a big decision of that on construction it is based on construction is putting us again as far off as we could start but also giving us those days that we need for the ib program the high school driver's ed so we had to put all of that in and start as late as we possibly could because of the construction and again next year's calendar will look very similar to this year's calendar all right all right and this will be presented for approval at the meeting on the 22nd correct okay all right thank you thank you um next up i'll turn it over to dr kara for mec update thank you board members this evening um i wanted so tonight we're asking you know for your guidance in thinking about next steps um if this is a direction we would want to go in other words to close that building at the end of this school year as you know if the board did want to to entertain that and look forward to that there is house bill 1785 that you're all very familiar with about the process that a district a board would need to go through with the hearings and certainly attorney bernard would be able to kind of talk a little bit about that but i wanted to open up the questions for you as a board member if you wanted to ask any questions about what's going on at nbc where we would be moving forward i have invited our panel back there that our experts and of course miss riley she's been working with great detail um with with both buildings to to look at staffing and needs of students so i open it up to you for questions so so i do have a question what ken what if you don't mind what is the projected opening time frame for the addition on the high school i mean theoretically there we go theoretically it would be fall of 23.
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not making any recommendations for grades seven and eight on incoming ninth grade um recommending five additional school choice students and again this is you know it's always very tricky to tell um with incoming ninth grade we do have you know we have as you know the vocational schools are doing their uh their enrollment quite different on beginning with next year's grade um and so i believe that our school choice slot numbers on for assad are at seven and you know that is significantly lower than historically they've accepted for berlin and boylston in the past and then you add um you know additionally currently we have you know approximately um three students who have put forth um you know recommendations for or ask for recommendations for private schools um so we're looking at those numbers so i believe that you know losing about about 10 students is probably what we're gonna um end up seeing but again it really is who knows um and then so with the with the five additional we would look at um an incoming uh grade 9 class of 86 students and then not recommending any other school choice grades 10 11 and 12 next year so eight four grade six and five four grade nine question so i thought i think to budget and some of the um placements that it cost us a lot of money right um when we accept school choice students in the district is there a risk that they also then require on the placement of the district that would [Music] when you um when you first do your your school choice um if you find that you know we ask for the records after we have accepted them initially if you find that you do not have the services or the capability to you know provide what that particular student needs you can at that point say you know that we cannot accept them because we don't have you know the program on in place for them however once they come in let's say a year later they need you know out of district placement we we own them can i answer the question so the kids that are coming in in sixth grade i see this that the eight recommended do we know if any of those eight are in the collaborative for um like do they so let's say they come from a town that's in the aspen collaborative and then they go off to assabet we're now responsible for paying your tuition correct forward no if they did middle school yeah if they go we're not responsible as a town so so basically if on it's where they reside so let's say that we have and this is happening we have students who are from clinton they're currently in the eighth grade they have applied to assad clinton i believe is not in the collaborative so they it goes by their home district so they would not be they would be put in that second tier of admission i guess the question though is if they could interact as a ninth grader are we paying the cost of their asset replacement no the town is their their hometown their top presidents even if they went through six seven and eight after months which makes sense quite honestly right but but aspect in charge how much does god's place in the next what does it cost to play someone that's like 1700 that and we operate people expenditures 16.
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so move i have a motion by miss amarillo may have a second second all right i have a motion by miss amarillo in a second by miss murphy is there any discussion on the minutes from july 13 2021 hearing none all in favor opposed abstentions all right so that motion carries unanimously dr gifford is uh taking minutes for us um next i'll entertain a motion to approve the regular session minutes for august 18th 2021 so moved motioned by miss amaral they have a second thank you miss murphy i have a second bye miss murphy um is there any further discussion on the minutes from august 18th hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions all right so that motion carries unanimously um before we adjourn to our joint session i just want to let you know that last night at the school committee meeting we are informed that the terms for the equality and diversity subcommittee technically expired in december the committee voted last night to extend your term for i think one week but i think it was for this meeting i can't remember the exact but it essentially means for this meeting whether it was one day or one week it's for this meeting the school committee will be taking up the issue of reappointments or reconstituting um the equality and diversity subcommittee at our next meeting so we would like to ask if if you are interested in continuing to serve it doesn't guarantee that you will be reappointed that you indicate your interest by emailing ms genther that you would be if you would be willing to continue to serve or not again that doesn't guarantee appointment but we they've asked for you to indicate whether or not you would like to continue any questions about that okay with that then i will entertain a motion to adjourn to joint session not to return to open session so moved all right so i have a motion by miss amaral look to miss murphy get a second for me again second by miss murphy um i'm going to ask mr nunes is my parliamentarian do i need to roll call that or is that just a regular thank you mr mr nunes is our our historian slash parliamentarian which we appreciate very much so um is there any further discussion on that you're hearing none all in favor i opposed abstentions all right so um now we will adjourn into the joint session and next i will convene the joint session of the dartmouth school committee and the equality and diversity subcommittee and uh i guess i will roll call the school committee into order uh mr oliver here mr nunes yep ms amberle yes miss waite yes uh and miss jenkins i am also president all right so um on our agenda we have uh one sort of item and that is presenting presenters addressing the matter of the dartmouth logo um we have uh speakers from the mashfi 1 wampanoag wampanoag the cassette wampanoag the equino wampanoag and the north american indian center of boston all of these groups of people have been given similar instructions but i will just say them for the record now each presenter we've asked to sort of limit to 10 to 15 minutes they can divide that up as they see fit for the equino wampanoag we have two different groups here speaking they will each get 10 to 15 minutes at that time after any group is spoken the committee any of the committee members are welcome to ask any questions of the presenters i will ask each of the presenters to identify themselves anyone who is with them and then we will go ahead and give them time to speak so with that being said is there any questions or comments before we get started mr news madam chair just and again uh just remind everyone to put their cell phones on silently oh yes thank you mr nintz please uh for we do have an audience here tonight so please make sure you silence your cell phones i forgot to do that myself so thank you for the reminder um we have some presenters here with us in person this evening and we have some presenters who are here with us uh virtually um and so i'm just going to follow the order as it is listed on the agenda um and i'm not sure there is any rhyme or reason to listing on the agenda but that's the most rational way to proceed and so we're going to start with the the mash p wampanoag who i believe are joining us virtually so i will wait for the uh somebody i do know that shauna is joining us virtually and so she is she here okay thank you um i think maybe shauna is also here virtually but we will uh go ahead and allow you to come up to the podium and and speak and i'm looking at mr galasha sort of to know if if uh sean is also here and we'll be um we'll be speaking so we'll just ask you to to introduce yourselves um but we will uh go ahead and allow you to um come up to the podium and and speak and uh i'm looking at mr gallacher sort of to know all right so we're figuring out some technical issues i believe um but um would you please go ahead and introduce yourselves and we'll allow you to go ahead and speak first all i'd like to say good talk to brian for allowing me to go before him my name is dawn d-a-w-n my last name is blake souza i am not technically a mashpee rompanova but i am considered an elder of the wampanoag tribe i have grandchildren who are mashpee i would like to convey a little story because that's the way we teach we teach those stories and this is a true story i'll make it as brief as possible several years ago i was at the cumberland farms in dartmouth over there in the corner of slogan road and my seven-year-old grandson kitsau was with me and my son his dad and we were just picking out a few items and some young ladies came in and they were acting very strangely they were hoping and hollering they had war paint on and they were dressed to our horror in costume and my grandson said grandma what are they doing and i i didn't understand because i didn't know the time about the the mascot at the high school and my son looked at me said mom they're coming from that football game over there and i said but they're dressed like that they're acting like that and i couldn't explain that to my seven-year-old grandchild it was so outlandish that i couldn't give him an adequate explanation i find it very offensive and i tried to under explain it to my grandson how adults today in this time this age can allow that kind of behavior and that's my that's my true story so i would consider i would ask this committee to consider seriously consider how it affects us the i find it personally i'm 77 years old i have 14 grandchildren and my my grandchildren are growing up primarily in mashpee they go to the mashfi language school and i i hope that you would consider their feelings and how you would feel if your culture was misappropriated in that way thank you thank you for listening thank you thank you shauna did you want to go real quick i think there may be a delay okay and then i can go um wanina khan natasha lee's mosquito new tomas masipia kanatai masipiya um what i just said is good day good evening my name is bearhart i come from ashby and i live in mashpee um i also have the honor and privilege of serving as the chairman of the mashpeewompnog tribe over the next three years on our language in our reservation we have a language school our language school is a montessori-based language school we teach our children wampanoag curriculum from hunting fishing gathering to how to survive in this day and age the school is named after weedamu and weedamu was one of the wampanoag sachims who actually fought with her people during king phillips war which is still one of the bloodiest and brutal wars um this continent nation has ever seen some of our students got together and put together a little video in this video is patakohan lopes who's six years old juliet green deer who is wampanoag in ho chunk and then shaylee johnson who is also six years of age and they're from the makai sukuiku school so here's a little message from them [Music] so i feel like it's important that we would be mindful of our youth i come here as an innocent bystander i have no conflicts of interest i have no nickel in that quarter so to speak about what you guys decide to do with the logo or not i think the biggest thing is the misconception i don't know how anybody else feels but i know that i'm not an indian and i was always raised to be proud that we're not indians you know columbus thought he landed in india and that's why he convinced and called us indians um some people might be okay with that but for majority of us we're not and not one individual speaks for an entire nation i certainly do not speak for all three thousand tribal citizens and you can learn a lot about a nation by how they treat their traditional people and their cultural people no matter who gets up here today and prides themself in how traditional and cultural they might be you can learn a lot about a nation by how they treat their elders and that's why i let one of our elders go first and besides your elders is your youth none of us here you know we've all lived and gone through school and have higher education and it's all about the young people you know we get offended every time halloween comes around because you see people with you know headdresses and everything else just to give a little bit of knowledge and background i attended barnsville high school and was home of the red raiders my father told me i could always try out for the sports team but i could never play for them until they got rid of their ridiculous logo now they recently got rid of their mascot and turned it into the right one all right hi everyone i think there is a delay so um okay just bear with me please but my name is shauna newcomb and i am a member of the mashfi wampanoag tribe i appreciate you giving me the floor or the screen tonight while i am happy to be able to speak and am truly humbled to have been invited i must say that my voice here tonight will only echo that whose should be the loudest which in is in my opinion the picasso council member megan running dear pages well yes i am a member of the federally recognized mashup wampanoag tribe the land you are currently standing on is not wampanoag territory it's actually cassette ancestral territory but to show my intertribal solidarity i am happy to lend my warranted opinion and that is that all native american mascots including your dartmouth indian mascot should be retired because number one it does not bring honor to indigenous people like you just heard from chairman whedon just the term indian itself is a misrepresentation of indigenous peoples back in 1492 columbus mistakenly thought he found a shortcut to india but he actually landed in the bahamas he then inaccurately labeled the aboriginals indians and it's just a constant reminder of the colonization and the assimilation native americans were forced to accept i'm also a middle school teacher so i'm going to come at you you know tonight with with uh my my major talking points my second point is that native mascots actually mocks indigenous culture each feather that your mascot is seen wearing had to have been earned in an act of bravery i will repeat that those feathers have to have been earned to see your students and sports fans freely wearing those feathers on their hats sports equipment or other school gear just diminishes the importance and pride behind those feathers bringing great shame and dishonor to our native ancestral heritages and number three your mascot perpetuates indigenous stereotypes now here is where i'd like to insert my own personal experience because like you've heard we are storytellers and so that's how we like to tell stories um you know to pass on to the next generation i am a proud sixth grade science and social studies teacher at the hanover middle school located on the south shore of massachusetts when i first started teaching there their mascot was the hanover indian keep that in mind okay now the first day of school is arguably one of my favorite days of the school year because i get to meet and get to know all of my new students and share a little bit about myself and of course i usually start with uh i'm mashp wampanog and their faces blank you know like native american nothing i can usually get some students to catch on when i have to resort to saying you know like disney's pocahontas telling you this is the truth every year the first day of school meanwhile their mascot is the indian they've since decided to change their mascot so just let's let's think about that why were my students not equating my native american heritage with their mascot i'll tell you why because i didn't look like their mascot i didn't have feathers in my hair like your mascot does i don't have war paint on my face like your mascot does therefore i must not be what that caricature is or i must not be that native american do the descendants of pilgrims let me ask you do they still wear big boots buckle belts and bucket hats no just like them right just like them we've also evolved over time no we are doctors we wear lab coats we are teachers right we can wear suits we don't have to look the same way as our ancestors did there are times and places where we do these images these mascots are dangerous and there's lots of scientific evidence that echoes that the american psychological association alone suggests that native american students are eight times more likely to commit suicide compared to the other students of any other race in this country now i'm not saying that native american mascots are the sole reason for that reality but it certainly doesn't help with their self-esteem i'd also like to speak to your intricate mission statement which is to provide a quality education for all learners well what kind of quality could that possibly be if you're already doing a disservice to your students by perpetuating the stereotype that all native americans look like your current logo even the national football league has acknowledged the detrimental effects of native mascots and have led major rebranding changes several schools across the country let alone right here in mass have also chosen to stand on the right side of history that directly impacts tomorrow's leaders my question to you tonight is what kind of example do you want to set for your students for your children into any native american student sitting in your classroom thank you yeah i just want to echo that the national congress of the american indians has taken a stance on native american mascots and i also serve in a capacity as an elected official for the town of mashpee i serve on the school committee and mashpee's doing a great work with intricating the language and the culture we provide wampanoag language to our middle school and high school students we provide cultural education to them we read a land acknowledgement statement before every school committee meeting that we do have i think that if the you know the town and the board wants to keep it um i think there are things that you guys can do i know that the kiowa tribe they're having an issue with one of the schools that are named after the tribe and they don't really have an issue with it as long as they do right by them and you guys provide cultural education and so on and so forth so i just want to leave you guys with some of our thoughts and just let you know that not one group speaks for an entire nation we are multiple uh tribes within a nation um and also the native american center for uh in boston nacab they're an organization they're not really an entity or tribal entity so i'm not sure what they might say to you guys but i think it's important if you want meaningful consultation i encourage you to take this trip on the road go visit the tribal members in aquina and mashpee and so on and so forth and really hear from the elders in the community and that's all i wanted to really tell you so catawbatosh thank you thank you does anybody have any questions representers i i appreciate the chair making the trip down here and taking the time to speak with us this evening as well as miss newcombe thank you very much we appreciate it just thank you thank you all right so again uh following the order established on the agenda next we'll ask the pocasset wampanoag to come speak and i know that megan running dear page is here to speak madam chair yeah if i could also ask after the speaker i do have a letter here on behalf of the poconoco nation that i'd like to read and put into the record sure i have letters from other nations if we're going to do that i i would ask for the same privilege then that's fine go ahead megan good evening committee members my name is megan running dear page i am councilwoman from the picasso at wampanoag tribe i stood before some of you in 2019 and here i am again tonight historically picasso territory went from taunton all the way through to little compton which included old dartmouth present day we hold reservation land in fall river mass that boarded into dartmouth on its east side as a tribe with past and present ties to dartmouth we the cassette are asking that the dartmouth indian logo be removed it is our duty to represent our ancestors to walk this land i stand here with their strength and contin and will continue to do so for us this is about so much more than a logo or mascot it's used to dartmouth high school is to symbolize the strength of the sports teams the warrior strength we feel the green indian head doesn't represent who we are what we have been through and the challenges indigenous communities still face such as homelessness hunger and substance abuse native people have longed for a day where we are no longer paraded around like mythical creatures savages and aggressive warriors we are proud people with families of faith language and community we are still here and we matter i want to make one thing clear this isn't about politics it's not about woke culture it's not about dividing the native community it's about how the logo makes the people it is supposed to honor and respect feel it doesn't make the majority of us feel that way at face value people might say the green indian head doesn't look offensive and others would agree but what people don't know is what the green indian head represents to the native people who have suffered for hundreds of years at the hands of colonizers it's still happening today i ask you not to vote out of fear let your conscience be your guide this is a moral issue and it should be treated as such stolen lands genocide ethnic cleansing slavery forced relocation sanitizing our history are some of the words that come to mind when i think about what native americans have endured for over 400 years old wounds in new run deep many reaching back into generations the only people that should have a say on this matter are natives current research shows that native mascots lead to lowered self-esteem lowered community worth and increase in negative feelings for native american students research also suggests that indian mascot supporters engage in stereotypical attacks allege that anti-mascot people are overly sensitive and deny that native people experience racism the dartmouth high school handbook says in quote in recognition of the native american heritage of the south coast of mass and out of respect for the original settlers of this area the dartmouth school committee has adopted the dartmouth indian logo as the symbol according to the handbook dartmouth schools shall be responsible for educating dartmouth students on the history and important role that the natives played in dartmouth is this being taught in 2019 we suspected it wasn't and we still suspect it isn't today a recent letter in dartmouth we confirmed our statistic our suspicions a 2020 dartmouth high school graduate stated that he never learned about the wampanoags until the logo became controversial he stated i was only exposed to the mascot in connection to the white people wearing the uniforms people hold on to the tradition of the nato native logo of bleeding green smearing more paint on their faces some traditions are meant to be broken they were instituted by non-native people with no thought about what the majority of indigenous voices in the area felt about it i will leave you with a direct quote from a quote from a tribal member for any person place or thing to symbolize my color my blood my ancestry in such a form is insulting stop disrespecting the native thank you all right so mr oliver has indicated he would like to read something into the record go ahead please thank you madam chair i'd like to enter this letter into on to the record uh from the council of clan chiefs picasso wampanoag tribe of the poconoke nation to this honorable board the picassot wampanoag tribe of the po poconoco nation shall not take part in any process that eliminates all native voices the issue of the dartmouth mass mascot bill currently under open meeting status is a very important subject to all it has drawn much attention over the years and has been a very painful and important matter the council of chiefs has not made any statements to this matter before discussion to the public the the picasset wampanoag tribe of mass in rhode island is not in any way shape or form connected to our traditional council a tribal structure we acknowledge them as brother and sister picassets and they certainly have their voice we however have taken the time to speak with an aquino wampanoag tribal member who has who has been an integral part of this important matter we discussed the factor of this emblem being made by an aquino tribal member years ago as a revamped more specific representation of eastern tribes the very question is should we erase all presence of native peoples in an effort to stop discrimination or have some resemblance of properly displayed native presence the bill h 581 massachusetts legislation would stop all mascots we feel the real question here is why there is not sufficient dialogue between the community and the local tribes not just a fifteen minute statement we have been in discussion with the band of chappaquiddick wampanoags whom also reviewed the mascot issue the the decision of why the mascot should go is a very deep issue that requires much dialogue than this it is very hard to erase the design made by a fellow aquino wampanoag without starting a war between the feelings of all tribal people this is unequivocally the land of the pikasset people but we all share a common interest the picasso after a brief discussion do not want to go against a design of a fellow wampanoag we however feel there should be much more dialogue on this matter and a resolution to collectively let all local tribes say their peace let us make an effort to bring unity to this important issue council of clan chiefs mcassett wampanoag tribe of the pocanooka nation by chairman and vice chairman george spring buffalo spring daryl black eagle jameson justin singing beer lion robert wandering buffalo kelly dwayne ossiquin shepard thank you thank you are there any other questions or comments from the committee i will just note that i did receive requests to enter several letters into the record um i had not received authorization i didn't that we were going to do that so i just want to want to know um that there was a letter from cheryl tony hawley the song of the nip nipmuck nation um as humans living among the many communities in the commonwealth we would prefer to speak and reason with townspeople about the harmful effects of their school mascot fortunately our voices are not heard alma gordon white sky of the chappaquiddick wampanoag anytime a school sports team plays a game against the school with an offensive mascot they experience demoralizing racial prejudice native american mascots and sports are not educationally sound for native american and non-indigenous youth i received a letter from also from miss melissa harding ferretti chairwoman of the herring pond wampanoag tribe the fact that racist ideas about native peoples in massachusetts are deeply ingrained and are reflected in sports teams mascots should not have to be explained in 2020 especially since native activists and educators have worked so hard and for so long to educate other americans about this so those are letters that i received i want that reflected in the record as well um at this point the next um set of speakers does anybody have any other comments or questions we have two different groups from the equino wampanoag it's my understanding that mr carney is going to be speaking on behalf of equino wampanoag who would like to speak on behalf of the logo um is that you mr carney please uh uh uh welcome you disrespectfully request to go second if that's if that's okay that is that uh i believe that should be fine yeah absolutely uh i'm just looking mr gallashaw's behind us he's our tech person um is mr lopes here okay mr lopes uh is a member of the equino wampanoag and has asked to speak to the committee and i believe he will be appearing virtually soon just give us a second we're working out some technical issues here hello everyone thank you for having me this evening my name is brad lopes i am a quina wampanok and um i'm here to speak on behalf of myself as a member of our nation i'm also here to speak on behalf of the 50-plus tribal members who have signed my petition in favor of not supporting mascots images or symbols such as the dartmouth logo i would like to thank also the speakers beforehand including our brothers and sisters from mashpee and picasso as well and i'd like to share my story with you all this evening as a member of the wampanoag in aquina i have spent unfortunately part of my life away from our people but i have spent part of it in environments that are similar to dartmouth and other places as well i'm a public school teacher i spend a lot of time working with students i spend a lot of time working with educators i also do professional development for educators too however how i got to this place took me a while i was a graduate of skowhegan high school in skowhegan maine far away from my homeland however like dartmouth we were the scout vegan indians we also had a logo symbol whatever semantics you want to use to call it and this particular image was also historically accurate in some way shape or form however it didn't stop it from being misinterpreted misrepresented and used as a weapon it became weaponized over time my experience was that i became the dirty indian i became insulted i was bullied excessively by my non-native peers especially being one of the only non-white students in the school i was often subject to many taunts at particularly prep rallies such as war whooping which you see consistently still at kansas city chief games in the nfl despite its disgusting nature i was also privy to students asking me to be the mascot i am not an object i am a human being i am not a mascot i am not a symbol i am not a logo i breathe the same air as you all and i bleed the same blood however that did not change my experience in high school it just led to further torment i was asked to bring quote unquote my headdress to school so that kids could see it as shauna mentioned earlier not only is that a misappropriation misidentification as well but it is also a horrible misuse of native culture i am coming to you all today to also as a teacher think about the kids now this won't be every kid but there are many many tribal kids who will feel impacted by this whether they are attending dartmouth or not we will also have students as well and it may impact them negatively and there is behavior that non-tribal students may pick up that could also be seen as bullying intimidation and adding to stereotypes for example i remember vividly opportunities where other sports teams would actually burn our mascot and i remember seeing a native person hanging and being lit on fire and that has a powerful impact on you because that is you you see part of yourself in that process despite not being that object and also has a negative impact on educators right now across the country what we're seeing is a teacher shortage and problems with retaining quality educators and i mean high quality educators educators who use empathy and understand kids and their development across time and unfortunately having a native american logo such as that at dartmouth i believe would actually lead to a lack of bypoc teachers black indigenous people of color and i believe it would also struggle to retain these teachers if they do choose to be a dartmouth and i say that as a native teacher i believe it also has a negative impact on adults in the community because what these symbols sometimes do is they start to actually blend authentic aspects of communities together and they confuse them with symbols for example despite this being an object it has become confused with nostalgia with pride with identity and they reinforced stereotypes and we are not products we are not objects we are a living breathing culture of people we speak our own language and we have many of our own practical customs and ways that we've been practicing for thousands of years i would also encourage dartmouth not to move in the direction of keeping the logo because i fear it will damage your relations with other indigenous nations across massachusetts i believe that it's very important for schools to recognize whose land they're on and to develop authentic relationships with these people and i believe that earlier today brian whedon shared a great example of that with the masterpiece school i believe that mashfi offers a prime example for how to have an authentic relationship with indigenous people i would also encourage you to look to the state in which i currently reside which is maine yesterday was the anniversary of the three-year ban of mascots in the state of maine and the wabanaki people are still here they do not need a mascot to represent them they do not need a symbol they do not need an image they are still here and their culture and history are brought directly into the classroom because of ld291 which is a state law that requires schools to teach wabanaki history that is how you provide some sort of honor to native people some sort of respect as you will actually form authentic relationships and i believe that dartmouth has this ability and i would encourage dartmouth to do this you know despite the fact that throughout our history we may have been fierce fighters we were more than just fierce fighters and we should be known for that a mascot is sometimes judged by those around it or the symbols around it and they are often inspired on single stories and the single stories will only reinforce stereotypes also i would encourage you all to move away from any narratives that have to do with erasure because i feel that this is strongly a logical fallacy and if this is true a symbol is not the solution education is um it is something that i want you all to strongly strongly consider even today i worry that if dartmouth chooses to keep the indian logo it will simply be a pirate victory and it will come down eventually only because it is archaic most depictions of native people are in pre-19th century context if you look at the research that's what it suggests we are modern people and every symbol like this no matter where it comes from no matter where it originates from unfortunately reins uh reinforces the stereotype of the quote unquote dead indian that scholar thomas king quotes we saw it with the land of lakes butter changing their imagery and we've going to continue to see it you also notice uh referencing my my comment earlier about fierce warriors that in the u.s military there are often the use of native names tomahawk missiles an apache helicopter again these reinforce stereotypes we are much more than warriors as much as we are proud of that i would also like to encourage you as a member of the aquino wampanoag tribe to talk to more of our general membership our tribe has a diaspora being an island nation many of our youth are actually off island many of our youth cannot afford to live on the island and because of this we are spread all out all over new england there are some of us here there are some of us there i was born in new bedford and my parents planned to live in dartmouth unfortunately that plan did not work out for them and so i would encourage you strongly to listen to these other members including the 50 plus acquaintance members that i'm representing tonight as well i am not an elected official and i have worked hard to try to gain the trust and consent of the group that i am representing tonight and i would just like to encourage you all to do what's right and to move away from this so that you can be proud of your community and so that you can celebrate your community and we can celebrate it together um thank you for allowing me to talk tonight i appreciate this immensely thank you everyone thank you does anybody have any questions no that's good since he's no longer here so thank you all right so mr carney uh if you would like to join us um and i believe you have some other people that are going to be with you if you wouldn't mind introducing them as well thank you good evening my name is sean carney i am a proud member of the federally recognized aquino wampanoag tribe with me i have my uncle clyde andrews author of the logo i have my other uncle mark andrews a dhs graduate i have my mother naomi carney also a dhs graduate i have my grandmother our tribal elder and our matriarch edith andrews we the town matriarch also our family matriarch we also have billy montero we also have randall bear montero both dartmouth residents class of 80 for billy randall for bear so we're speaking today on behalf of ourselves and on behalf of the tribal members that agree with us on this issue before i start i would like to read a small statement into the record i believe you have received this letter uh dated march 8th members of this school committee we members of the federally recognized wampanoag tribe of gay hedona and all of dartmouth's tribal families compromising our proud residents alumni and current students fully support preserving the dartmouth indians name and symbol as you are well aware an iteration of the current logo was authored by fellow tribal member and dartmouth high school alumnus clyde andrews around 1974 his mother edith andrews was asked by gil gil madrigal director of music and the late carlin lynch the head football coach to redesign the then existing great plains indian symbol to reflect a more accurate depiction of eastern woodlands indians the dartmouth indian its symbolism its history and the pride behind it has unified our families for generations despite the battle cries of a few non-tribal voices in dartmouth as well as a few out-of-town organizations the symbol is not disrespectful disparaging or derogatory in any manner over the generations many of the undersigned students and thrived and continued to while attending dartmouth schools representing our town across the state the nation and in various capacities through scholastics sports and the music program unfortunately there are some including several members of the committee who are determined to erase the dartmouth indian at all costs the three-year process to erase the indians was deliberately exclusive exclusory from the onset from the creation of a cherry-picked now-defunct subcommittee demonstrating a complete lack of outreach for public comment and dissenting opinions to ignoring the sentiments of our tribal members who reside in dartmouth in addition certain school committee members have intentionally downplayed our federal recognition status a government-to-government relationship between our tribe and the united states with inherent rights of self-government and sovereignty we as tribal members and residents of dartmouth were not invited to be presenters at this tribal forum until the 11th hour we were only informed of our ability to present late last night after the school committee met further how tragic would it be to our dartmouth high students who are tribal members who are being stripped of their representative identity without ever being consulted they deserve a voice in this process staying true to this theme on july 13 your school committee chair shannon jenkins said we shouldn't ask an oppressed people if they feel comfortable with their oppression almost a year earlier on august 13 2020 she tweeted they're mad that i've pointed out our mascot is racist it's a lot easier to lol when the racists are mad at you this type of rhetoric has significantly polluted any school committee forums on this matter and it certainly demonstrates a lack of appreciation for the intelligence and sophistication of our tribal members who are thriving citizens across the state and country who include professions in law enforcement doctors teachers lawyers tradesmen scientists artists tribal leadership elected officials and great parents just to name a few we are not oppressed moreover the dartmouth indian is an honorable symbol not a mascot over the years the school department has respectfully utilized the symbol in a limited manner that demonstrates honor and pride for our people the symbol won't be found on the floor of your school hallways on the basketball courts or on any field of play or any location where it can be stepped on of course we understand that not all tribal members or tribes will agree on this issue just like any subset of people we have diverse opinions however the issues related to the indians name and symbol here are purely and uniquely a dartmouth issue these issues should be ultimately ultimately resolved by dartmouth's residents and alumni and the dartmouth indians name and symbol is unifying unifying respectful and pays homage to our indigenous history it should be reaffirmed honored and celebrated respectfully edith andrews clyde andrews sheryl andrews maltese mark andrews kyle andrews naomi carney wendy harwood megan harwood jeff martin william martin james martin mary martin both of whom are current dhs students courtney pacino lauren martin caitlin ants billy montero william montero ii marianne montero randall bear montero celeste ventura jacob ventura jeremy ventura jared walker and justin walker all members of our tribe to move on i would like to once again point out that the issue to us is not a mascot it's a logo it's symbolism it's imagery and once again it was designed by one of our own clyde andrews a member of our aquino wampanoag tribe we have significant differences here in dartmouth than what we've seen in cleveland in washington and in other areas of the country where you've had either derogatory names for the teams or caricature depictions of plains indians here we're not using a derogatory name now natives will agree on this will disagree on this across the board but the word indian on its face to myself and to those standing behind me and to those who sign this letter is not derogatory it's codified in our constitution it's codified by 25 usc which is a united states code which gives us our inherent rights and government-to-government relationship by getting rid of indian you might as well be getting rid of these rights secondly there is an overwhelming support for from the dartmouth aquina wampanoag that live in dartmouth for this logo those that are directly affected those that are who either grew up in the town went to school here or have a deep connection here the symbol and logo has united generations on athletic fields classrooms board band competitions and once again this is a uniquely dartmouth issue i would like to briefly respond to some of the comments made today i would like to briefly respond to shauna our our very eloquent sister from mashpee i do agree feathers were earned in active bravery but i will say that showing up to school competing with sportsmanship and giving it 100 in the classroom the athletic field the auditorium or elsewhere in the dartmouth community is an act of bravery i would also say that the approach uh by mr lopes is much too broad we cannot just get rid of all native imagery symbolism um some native imagery and symbolism that is far too overreaching we should be taking a tailored approach here looking at what what symbolisms and what imagery is or is not offensive and which we should also have articulable reasons of why things are or are not offensive i would say to the committee here in the case of the dartmouth indian you have a tastefully done historic representation of what the eastern indian eastern woodland indians looked like i haven't heard anyone yet pinpoint something about that logo that is either offensive defamatory or derogatory i would say that we would love as a tribe and or at least speaking for um the tribal members you see before you today here we would love to set up a partnership with dartmouth in order to better educate your students on what that logo represents and the people it represent we would love that community to uh tribal government relationship we would love to see that happen we would love to educate your students we would love you guys to do right by us and partner with us of course and we appreciate all of the you know we appreciate all of the efforts and all of the viewpoints that have happened here but once again getting rid of all native imagery is not the solution and i would also agree with mr lopes that the image on its own is not the solution but i can tell you definitively it's also not the problem i would like to invite uh our my grandmother edith andrews to say a few words on the logo as well good evening i'm also a town union member and um when we when we had hired gil maldrigo and i told him that the imagery of the indian was not of our area because it was indian and full headdress and so that's when he said well edith you tell me how it should be and so i said well we are the eastern woodland indians so i went home and i had my son clyde draw an image of the eastern woodland indian and that's how come that came about because colin lynch and gill madrigal agreed because that would be on everyone's uniform the logo that should be representing our people in this area so that's that's my story and i just hope that we can keep our symbolism there which is not a symbol but it's an icon because everybody's too eager to erase the indian because i think there's uh there's a pattern going on because right now everybody wants to think that they stepped on this land and there was no one because of the fact that we are called the people and because everyone has a nation nation's name and we are the wampanoag we have the narragansetts we have the mohegans we have many others and there is about 50 528 nations in this united states different tribal nations and it's very important for everybody to know and we all do have our differences but the one thing that we do agree that we love one another and if we didn't like people and didn't respect people the pilgrims would still wait be waiting to get on the land because if it wasn't for us to make them well because they were dying with the disease and everything so if if we were uh what they would call a wild people you people wouldn't be here so it's thankful to the uh the wampanoag people that helped the pilgrims survive that's my story thank you [Applause] thank you very much for your time thank you does anybody have any questions before mr carney leaves the podium thank you i i'd just like to set the record straight that um i apologize if the invitation was not extended to you until last evening on the 24th we set the date for this meeting and i asked my committee for help i emailed mr oliver on the 27th and asked him to reach out to the equina wampanoag so there was an attempt to reach out earlier i apologize if that was not communicated to you but we did sort of try to start that ball rolling and i believe uh dr gifford and miss genther um reached out to to the chair in early february i apologize if it was not conveyed to you i just want to make sure that there was not an attempt to uh exclude uh the tribe from presenting here and we we did make some attempts to reach out madam chair i would like i would like to just say thank you for uh for correcting that um for the record here thank you thank you mr oliver would you like to no i was just going to add that yes dr gifford and kate had reached out and i was included on it and to chairwoman cheryl andrews maltese and i don't think that we ever received any correspondence we did she did respond and there's some dialogue back and forth that there's i just want to make it clear that that was not an intentional uh slight and that we had tried to be in communication and apologies for for that not getting conveyed to you i appreciate that madam chair thank you thank you miss andrews but if you have something else to say please step up to the microphone because that our audience cannot hear we could bring it to her i don't yes i just feel that by now i should we have been listened to the quina too long it's a quina equina my apologies please because it's it was driving us insane back here thank you thank you thank you um all right so thank you for that our final presenter um is from the north american indian center of boston i believe he will be presenting virtually and it will take us just a second to get sean luke up on the uh hello thank you for joining us this evening please uh introduce yourself and uh uh go ahead let's make sure okay hello um thank you to dr jenkins thank you to the dartmouth school committee um i am uh calling in from unseated non-attack land here in western massachusetts my name is jean-luc perite i am the president of the north american indian center of boston we are massachusetts oldest urban indian center providing cultural and social services for the new england native american community for over 50 years and as a matter of the purpose for us being here as uh urban indian organization uh in 1976 by executive order number 126 massachusetts native americans signed by governor dukakis we then as the boston indian council was designated as the state's liaison for residents who were members of tribes who had historical government government relationships uh but are now outside of the border so thinking about massachusetts in terms of uh the bay colony uh and the province of massachusetts um this is a this is a difficult testimony to give um and i have no joy in my heart um saying these things but on july um in a letter to roger goodell the commissioner of the national football league a letter which was signed by north american indian center of boston and the united southern eastern tribes sovereignty protection fund demands were laid out for the washington football team to eliminate any and all imagery evocative of native american culture traditions and spirituality from their team franchise including the logo this includes the use of native terms feathers arrows or monikers that assume the presence of native american culture as well as any characterization of any physical attributes a ban all use of native imagery names slur names red face appropriation of native culture and spirituality as well as violence toward native peoples from the league and i cite this letter starting off because i am my i'm a member of a federally recognized tribe the tunica biloxi tribe of louisiana we are part as a tribe we are part of the board of directors for the united southern eastern tribes sovereignty and protection fund along with the federally recognized tribes of massachusetts i wanted to also talk about the authorship of the current iteration of the dartmouth high school logo as a matter of fact dating back to 1937 a highly resonant image was on the jerseys of teams from dartmouth college in new hampshire and it was actually in when native americans at dartmouth wrote out demands uh stating that we native american people affirm our belief that the united states is not a monolithic society but a plural pluralistic society whereas the historical function of dartmouth college has been to promote the myth of a melting pot to negate diverse beliefs we native americans at dartmouth unequivocally declare that the indian symbol is a mythical creation of a non-indian culture and in no manner reflects the basic philosophies of native american peoples and as such cannot exist within an institution ostensibly committed to the education of native americans uh and others and again they uh going back 50 years we have the same sorts of demands athletic teams shall refrain from the use of indian as a mascot references to athletic teams as the dartmouth indians or any illusion thereof must cease dartmouth cheerleaders bands students and alumni must cease the use of wahuwa in the dartmouth on the war path cheers i wanted to also call into mind because we're talking about um you know either either removing the symbol but then also in a recent article clyde andrews said that if the if the logo was to be removed that the expansion of native american history within curriculum uh would be a reasonable solution um and i and i agree with them very much so and i would want to say also that you know when we talk about dartmouth indians uh we're talking about uh very specific people that lived on on land that was proximate to where dartmouth high school is settlements along the westport river going back to the 1861 earl report having no common lands or common fund these indians have escaped the special paternal care and guardianship of the state and relying on their exertions and mingling with the general community than those on the plantations above uh are above all uh average uh indians in civilization general intelligence and the enjoyment of the comforts and privileges of social life but more so than than the people the land um itself um you know thinking about the actual people that were there doing during those times thinking about spiritual leaders such as nehemiah abel conducting ceremony where people from all over the south coast would come together and and join in ceremony at least once a year thinking about people that are important to all of our communities people such as paul cuffey who is who is described as being both tall and stout spoke good english and dressed in that quaker style that is uh he adorned a drab colored suit with a large flapped hat he's a tall poor person well-formed and athletic but beyond all of these descriptions he is native american and african and so i look at a symbol like what the dartmouth indians logo is and i wonder what we are when we reduce ourselves to this visual language who is actually included and who is actually a race what is the history that we are uplifting and how can we as a black indigenous and people of color uh move forward uh within these public school systems so i just leave my comments at that thank you very much tikach thank you so does anybody have any questions or comments all right so hearing none um that brings us to the end of our agenda for the evening there is if there are other matters that have not been anticipated at the time of the agenda posting i think i'm going to start with the equality and diversity subcommittee and then turn to so i will ask the quality and diversity subcommittee if you have any comments questions input can very quickly go ahead and step up to the microphone introduce yourself yeah i'm mark andrews i graduated 1981 and i just want to say that there's a lot of people here from dartmouth that grew up in dartmouth and i'm sure they're in the auditorium now that this image you know i call it an emblem i don't call it a mascot um and the emblem has traveled to the rose bowl parade with the dartmouth high school band internationally up through canada it's been at you know super bowls on you know with uh football players now we just we find it as a very honorable you know uh sense of homage pay to the original uh residents of this land and now that it's called dartmouth and that it's shared with everybody you know everybody in dartmouth has that sort of connection and they're proud of it whether they be portuguese italian irish i grew up with all ethnicities you know and um we all put the helmet on with the lo with with the image on the helmet and you know and when we think back of it when we think back of our high school days we think of colin lynch we think of bob simmons al porter all these people who shaped us as individuals to go out and venture into the world and give it our best so um you know i mean i want to see the the logo um or emblem be retained so that's it it represents a lot to people who grew up here and have moved on and sort of have that same dartmouth high spirit wherever life takes them thank you all right so um is there anything that and that other members of the equality and the diversity subcommittee would like to bring up or talk about right now all right so i will remind people on the committee that if you that if you are interested in continuing on the committee to email ms genther let's say by the end of this week if you can do that if you'd like to continue and i will return to the school committee and ask if there are comments questions other matters they might mr oliver thank you dr jenkins and thank you to all the uh tribes that came out this evening to speak um i i deeply appreciate it i appreciate all of you being here on the diversity and equality committee and thank you to dr jenkins dr gifford and everyone at the school department for putting this night together i think it's deeply important to this community and deeply important to to these committees as well that we we finally had a chance to hear from tribal members across this area and across the region with that said i think it's really important that we continue these conversations if all of you on the diverse inequality committee would like to come back and be reappointed you know at some point i think it's important that we we hear from all of us together before any type of vote is taken in addition to after the town's non-binding referendum takes place but before that previous to that i think it's equally important that we continue to have these conversations um and i i personally would like to reach out and have some conversations with with some of the uh the tribes that spoke this evening um it's very clear to me that the aquino wampanoags for that were dartmouth high school alumni dartmouth alumni that are present this evening that signed off in this letter have a have a very big stake in this and i think it's important that we continue to listen to them um and continue to listen to their brothers and sisters and other tribes um so i would just you know i would just ask that we continue to have these conversations um and continue this dialogue i know there's a public forum um coming up next is the next week two weeks two weeks two weeks where the um the uh citizens of dartmouth will be given the opportunity to speak and so i think that's deeply is equally important as well so um thank you very much thank you for your time thank you any other comments just you know thank you to everyone who's who's here and has spoken much appreciated learned a lot thank you all right go ahead and miss wait no i would just say again like you know i also want to echo my colleague and say you know thank you to everyone who came i think we had a quite a diversity of opinion um i do think that it's important as we continue in this conversation we do continue to work together we certainly have two different issues one is you know around the continuance of the logo and the name and then there's a separate issue about really engaging and thoughtful education and that's a really i think you know if you listen to all the groups that came up in all the nations that is a continuing theme that you know we really need to honor that relationship and continue that relationship so you know what a decision is made around this one component continuance of that relationship and really going through an honest um thoughtful exploration of our history which may be you know the good bad the ugly i think is a really really important thing that we progress together so you know to your point mr oliver i really hope that we can continue those relationships and um you know this is meaningful and i i again i think we need to i hope we continue to do more so thank you everyone yeah i would i would agree with miss waite um and i'm particularly eager uh to talk to uh chair whedon about uh the materials that they've used with the with the mashpee school district um i'd like to see us develop some similar sorts of things for our school district um obviously it's going to be different because of we're in a different place but um i think it's a very important point that regardless of the decision about the logo or that that that second issue not be dropped and that we continue to move the ball forward um on that issue i think it's important and i know you've been looking into sort of where we are doing this and i think we're all i think we may be in disagreement on issue number one but i think it's safe to say that we're all in agreement on issue number two um that we want to continue moving forward with that and doing better on that issue samuel do you have anything you want dan yeah no i mean the only thing i was going to add my colleague miss wait um really articulated well and the theme that i heard throughout it was an honor to hear from everyone uh and um it was a good evening i'm really appreciative of the opportunity to hear from everyone and uh you know that common theme and exploring what mashpee has done in terms of really ingraining that into their curriculum and and digging deep into you know um that piece of it but i just butchered what um mary how mary eloquently articulated i agree i have my days thank you so um if there's no further discussion or comment i will just note that our the next meeting of the school committee is i'm going to get this wrong and i know mr news will correct me if i'm wrong the 21st and on the 21st we will have a discussion about the this committee um we are also having public comment on uh the 22nd two weeks from tonight that will be in the auditorium i will also say to the committee regardless of the decision that we make on uh the 21st that forum is open to all members of the public um so i will invite you to attend that regardless as well as other what we decide on the 21st um as well as as other members of the community um that having been said um i think i have to i need a motion to adjourn from the from everyone i can do it thank you mr hands so i will entertain a motion to adjourn the joint session of the dartmouth school committee and the equality and diversity subcommittee all right i have a motion by mr nunes a second by mr oliver we all get to vote on this all in favor aye aye opposed abstentions hearing none um thank you everyone thank you for our speakers we deeply appreciate you coming have a good evening thank you you
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uh you would just get the one line item and so that's why it uh that it the maximum on this is nine i also want to point out that there is a target minimum um this is not a required minimum because the whole point of this checklist is to offer that flexibility to landlords about how they may achieve their overall minimum point value of 65 points if for whatever reason landlord is unable to get points from this section they can get make up those points in another section and so i just want to explain what that target minimum means but here are some more um action items for them certain air sealing requirements to if you were to get the points for the air changes per hour that would require a rating from a certified raider or assessor but there are several things on here that you can do that would not require you to to get that so you can wherever visible you can caulk and seal windows and doors around the house you can replace all of the light bulbs with leds and so you can see as we go through here a number of different point values for a number of different [Music] action items um there is the incentive here to replace the um appliances even though that is a separate policy component that has already been called out as a requirement that is for time of replacement like i said or by the year 2030.
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and and that's realistic right yes because we're in the process of programming right now i think uh dr karen um some of uh the other executive council is going to be talking about programming along with all that and so uh the goal is to start construction i will i i'm pretty sure september october is so that'll give a good 12 minutes yeah bids he said would be going out probably early summer in june so we're we're moving along so so this lends to a conversation i think we had and it kind of goes back to the junior high a little bit so before we make and and move forward with this we need to make sure that we talked to mr wartell and miss pappas about what the needs are kind of like we were short before we don't want to do that again and is the high school going to be able to handle the time frame you know you're going to have you're gonna have a point in time where we're we're either not gonna have mec currently and decommission the building or we keep it but are they gonna be able to handle that okay is i guess the first question but the other thing is we got to make sure that what our needs are there and so that we make sure that we get them into the planning stages to make sure that all the needs are met like where's the vision of of the program i mean we could probably see thomas we're telling he'll tell us exactly where he wants that program to go and i think that's where we need to go with that what is the ultimate goal of that addition and making sure that if we're going to do it we want to do it once again i think the next phase of our facilities at some point will be putting an addition on the middle school um you know i don't want to have that conversation in five years with this i want to make sure we do it right so um i guess that's the two questions is what's our vision for that and then a is can the high school handle or have the space what if you get five students from junior high or an additional six students from the high school will they be able to handle that all right so as i said next year we have projected to start with three students and we do expect uh you know more students come in and again this is in the interim before the new facility is built and uh ms trish i don't know if you want to add anything to that you know i know your team has taken a look at some of the rooms you've designated some of those rooms do you want to just talk briefly about the rooms and how many they could hold ms trish would you mind going to the podium please for the microphone our friends at home might want to hear so we've already began looking at space at the high school for can you hear me yeah designation for um middle mec students so we're already looking at uh one classroom for middle school and we're looking at two classrooms for mec all right so a theoretic theoretically you could handle uh you know 10 middle school students in one classroom and maybe yeah with the other two so you have room to grow most definitely right because right now we would be starting with zero middle school students but we'll still have that space allocated and we're having three right three high school students coming over and that's in one classroom and then we'll have an extra classroom so then there's plenty of room of growth for that entire year until the new facility is built and we're going to provide them with the staff necessary depending on the growth that is that is correct we already have the mec staff on hand and we will start the year with as many mec staff members as would be necessary to grow that program right and they they would be obviously the instructors for those students okay so thank you i'm sorry so miss trish don't worry i'm sorry so you did so miss trish you have oversight not only of the high school but the middle school as well for disciplinary you know for potential students being in a alternative program um you mean in the interim when they yeah so right now so right now you're projecting three classrooms three classrooms or three students high school students we would have three high school students however we would have three classrooms available for the mec students that's the best part of high okay so for our seventh and eighth graders what we're projecting one student a two student for seventh and eighth grader we don't have any we don't have any however we are setting aside a classroom just in case just in case that's my point because again you you you know you we know the knowns right now but we don't know the unknowns and it can happen anytime throughout the year and we need to be prepared for that and we will be okay okay great now the staff if we close nec down for this upcoming year we have staff members and we can absorb those staff members into our system right yes without anybody nobody's losing their job right that is correct nobody ever and these are positions that they feel pretty comfortable with taking right that they're certified so there's not going to be disruption there okay and the last question i guess to you eric which is the the house bill 1175 do we have to follow that through this process yes so um hospital uh i believe this is 11 17.
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[Music] i don't really get why school choice is a huge thing and so how do you how are these how do you get these numbers school choice numbers i didn't i don't know i already heard them yes um so we like to keep the numbers um right around 90.
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the reason they are also in this checklist is we want to be able to give landlords who have already done these items a chance to collect the points that they would earn for doing those otherwise so that's why you see appliances also on this checklist as i continue scrolling down sort heating sources and cooling sources get certain point values you'll see that we there this is the only point where you will see gas given any um point value on this um checklist gas appliances i mean and that is only if it is over 95 efficient um the reason this was included on here um is in to cover for instances where maybe somebody just put in an efficient furnace uh right before this policy um we don't want to have to force them into a position where they need are incurring the cost of replacing this new furnace in order to get points um but we do are going to require that it be efficient um so that we are using as little fossil fuel as possible if any at all but you will see here that there is a strong preference for electric appliances so that we can continue pushing towards satisfying that second strategy of a20 which is electrification in terms of the distribution system there a lot of losses come from poorly insulated or poorly sealed ducts and so we want to address those you'll see that there is a zoned item here where there are a surprising number of duplexes or multiplexes where where one or more units don't have any control over the temperature of their own unit because there's only one thermostat for the entire building and so we want to encourage individual control over temperature um and then again just kind of scanning through here things like insulating the hot water pipes you can get points for we this some of the flexibility of this prescriptive checklist comes from the some of these unique ways that folks can that landlords can achieve points so by attending an energy conservation class or encouraging your tenant to do that that is a we wanted to award that um with some points uh certain things like putting carbon monoxide uh alarms in the unit which are required for new building permits but are not retroactively required um so there are still a lot of rentals without that and um i'll say again that the this uh this entire green rental housing policy is targeted at the health the safety the comfort and the efficiency of rentals in ann arbor and so there you do see health components on here in having conversations with landlords and looking at plan reviews of new projects that are proposed in many cases for rentals city compost is not given that is something that landlords wait for a request from tenants on and so we want to as we encourage our waste streams as we consider our waste streams we want to encourage compost to be a given and then there are bonus points here for innovative measures so if you are providing your tenants with say bus passes instead of parking passes great um sealing up windows on old historic homes where there are certain restrictions on replacement replacing the windows great um and then a few other few other things here like motion sensors on the lighting to kind of reduce the reliance upon positive occupant behavior remembering to turn off the lights in other words and then finally there are water conservation points there are three points that are required out of this that do not count towards the overall 65 the overall minimum of 65 points but that are easily attainable and that we would like to see applied in each rental unit jumping back over to the presentation um that's the efficiency checklist uh we discussed that great okay so now um the alternative to the efficiency checklist is a performance pathway um this is another way that we are offering landlords flexibility and how they achieve the efficiency recommendations this would involve a hers rating at the landlord's expense but it does give landlords very specific specific items on how to tighten up the unit and increase the efficiency and so there is that payoff it maximizes the investments that are made at that unit and the requirement is that you would fulfill the items that are listed on your uh your your hers rating that you get from the rater um the final policy component is this efficiency disclosure and this is simply just making explicit that the results of your efficiency in terms of the green rental housing policy are publicly available this is not a surprise or anything that is new you can already find the results of any rental housing inspection on the city website we just wanted to make sure that it was clear that these components would also be made publicly available let's take a look at the the timeline so starting at the beginning of last year um this is when we were doing the rmi cohort we were beginning some best practices research um and by quarter two of last year in june we launched the the task force uh it was in i believe uh august that we began the usdn learning group um which continued is still continuing through today um that gold star is where we are now in 2022 we are launching public comment and as missy stated previously it is going for going out tomorrow um and that will we are gathering as much information as possible i will remind you that everything i've i'm presenting here is still a draft so even that checklist and we are seeking public comment from anyone uh in the city of ann arbor all anyone and everyone about the where they see room for improvement or what they think is good um or anything that we missed so that this policy can be as effective for everyone involved as possible um we're doing the energy commission presentation right now and after we do conclude the public comment period in mid-april we'll collect all the information that we got from that all the questions that were submitted all of the suggestions and if there's anything that requires any major change to what i'm presenting on here we'll bring the task force back together to take a second look at it and review it before passing it along for final legal review the usdn learning group will be continuing on and as will the public engagement um we will hope to have everything buttoned up by the end of 2022 so that we can launch full bore at the start of 2023 beyond that we will the implementation process will also involve um check-ins for program develop program unveiling so as uh as more and more people participate through the inspection process uh and we get more real world feedback um we'll make adjustments as as necessary okay now for this when uh thing i want to just throw out there that we are doing two public presentations they are the same so you don't need to attend both they're just on different days of the week and at different times of day just to maximize as many um opportunities for people to engage as possible there will be a survey posted to the city website tomorrow that will accompany these presentations and that will be the survey that we are the ways that we are collecting feedback as i already mentioned the engagement will continue beyond program launch we want to make sure that it is as effective as possible and then we're also doing a number of one-on-one um check-ins we'll be meeting with landlords throughout the city individually to make sure that this this policy is satisfactory and can get is as bulletproof as possible um and hope for a smooth clean launch in january 23.
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i have the statute number which is section 10-22.13 of the school club [Laughter] so yeah it was passed last year and it references a few different procedural requirements that the district's going to have to follow in order to ultimately shut down a school building so specifically the board must hold at least three public hearings the sole purpose of which must be to discuss the decision to close the school building and to receive input from the community the board has to provide notice of the hearing or each of those hearings at least 10 days in advance on its website and that notice needs to set forth the time date place and name or description of the school building that the school board is considering closing the new statute like i said so there obviously has not been a lot of interpretation of it but certainly as long as the hearing itself is confined to discussing um the decision to close the building as well as receiving input from the community we believe that you could hold that hearing within the context of a normal board meeting as long as it's a specific you know set aside portion of the meeting that said if you want to take a more conservative approach you could certainly choose to have a special board meeting and solely devoted to that issue as well i think either of those would be acceptable so just as we have a public hearing on the levy adjacent you know at the beginning of a regular board meeting we could do the same here where you open the public hearing you start the meeting have the pledge all that good stuff you open a public hearing you have the presentation opportunity for public comment close public hearing and then move on with your regular meeting exactly and you have to do that three times you have to do that three times and you have to provide notice for each of them at least 10 days in advance so as opposed to 48 hours for our meeting correct so if you know you're going to have it for example um i know you're not going to do this at your next board being on on march 22nd but if you were going to you would want to make sure you put that notice out by march so 12th might make sense to do say a special meeting three times at six o'clock so we could separate out the notice from our regular board agenda you might want to think about having one in a different time because we do have people who work evenings as we found out today that couldn't make it to an earlier meeting so we might manage to make sure that one of those is morning afternoon something like that not all three of them not at six o'clock at night because i think you might get well you still have to have a quorum from the board members don't right so we'd have to plan that in advance but i i truly think that we need to remember that people work different hours now and especially now more people going to remote jobs they're working at night when their spouse is home to help with the kids or whatever so i just think we need to be cognizant that one of those might need to be at a different time that's all and i was just wondering if miss pappas or mr wartell would mind just um for those that are at home what our mec program entails from what i've understood it's changed from back when i remember it so i just kind of want to know what the program now is what it does what it offers and for those at home that don't know what we're talking about with mec it might just be good information for them well brian you have 25 minutes i was going to see well it has changed over the years you know we used to be mainly for discipline issues over the last few years with the district thinking about for more of the kids that had social emotional issues and that's why i think you see the numbers changing too because uh with the you know the committees that have been pro brought upon us and all that that we've done a lot more restorative justice in our schools at the middle school in high school so that's why you're seeing the enrolling numbers going down so it's kind of been especially with kova too so it's kind of like a perfect storm for this building closing with numbers but what we've really excelled on these last five years is working with the kids that were ready to drop out of school foster kids kids that just weren't fitting in at the middle school or the high school and over the last five years we've graduated over 38 kids those 38 kids would have surely dropped out of school if we were not there so it's a fantastic program i think this is a great opportunity for the district to move forward at the high school because they're going to be able to provide a lot more resources for them so does that answer your question yes thank you thank you it does so so we went from a disciplined kind of you know school into a social emotion okay and i think today in society that's probably the most important part of it is the social emotional part of it um just because i think uh before kovit i do i visited there and the kids there were [Music] they just you're right they didn't know where they fit in the school but they still were able to graduate and and become you know what we preach in here we want them to empower each student to positively impact the world right and that's what they were doing yeah it was a great opportunity for us and i do think with the pandemic and all that's going on in society it's it's great i think we do have a lot more social emotional needs out there so yeah and for our 15 students in our building we got about 65 in the high school you could probably find with the same issues and probably the same thing more than you think right yes exactly well and that was going to be kind of lead to my question which is if we think we have three students identified going into next year how do we justify building the addition we're not building that for three students we we feel like there's a greater need correct yes and right now ms reilly is in the middle of working with uh coming up with an identification tool to help um kid find i guess students that have experienced trauma so that we can go out there and collectively find that we are looking to also have this be a choice program this isn't a program that you know you and you have to go to we are designing it to be a very progressive enticing program with a lot of choices and freedom that come along with it so when students think about going to you know we haven't named it yet you know the the wing they're they're choosing to go there because there will be smaller class sizes there'll be more opportunities such as compacted curriculum for earlier graduation student-to-work programs more opportunities for online options students that have anxiety about going to a regular classroom with 20 kids now they have an opportunity to say hey i choose to have a very small environment or i choose to take a particular class online and we also are looking to have additional resources with social worker psychologists career counselors we're going to beef up that portion of it because our goal is no matter who comes through our doors our goals at the time they walk at graduation they're going to have a cord that either is going to show that they are graduating with a degree for getting ready for tech you know and the trades out there or perhaps looking for going on to junior college or four-year college but everybody will know where they're going so that we can continue that graduation rate because like i said you know we've seen it out there too the students are different than they were two years ago and the social emotional needs is considerable out there so i think we are doing a complete pivot now and so the students that we had two years ago three years ago there were some certainly but we think we know just by looking at our data that it is exponential out there for the number of needs so as we start to define and identify them for a screening tool and giving students and families choices to pathways that are smaller more supportive you know in order for them to graduate that is that that is where we're shifting this and a lot of people say you know is this exactly like mec it's going to have to be a blend it's a blend yes that was my question it's going to evolve like everything else i think i think you've probably understood that all the work that's been done eight years ago was you know disciplinary right so you had a stigma or something about it but in the last five years or however long you've been there you've changed and how it's evolved into what it is today and i think it may be in a different building but maybe the opportunity is better for more for more opportunity yeah yeah we used to have kids couldn't wait to get out of there now we have students that prefer to stay at mec then go back to the high school just because the attention of the smaller class size of the staff ratio all those things that you can't you know mimic in a school of 1600 students and so that wing will give them opportunity more students opportunity because right now it's still based on discipline not choice and i think that's a big key word is choice there's a bunch of kids out there that need this kind of programming that we just can't do right now so we're going to have we're going to have a component that says choice obviously and we're going to have that component that says really you don't have a choice right there'll be a component of that i'm sure yes and with those kids that have a component with the choice involved are they going to be able to co-mingle or hybrid somehow where they could go back and forth from this new building over to the high school and participate in some classes there or is it all or nothing no the the the program follows our equity statement about being inclusive okay and not um exclusive you know in in the way that it looks and so we are working with designing a format that creates some flexibility but also creates you know for students that need a little bit more of they prefer kind of being off by themselves that they they don't want to be in the mix we will be able to provide that but again i think the key about going into this program is we want to make sure that our students have access to the career opportunities that we have we are looking to grow them as i had said we are looking at some partnerships with some other districts such as barber cosmetology we are looking at drones for airline pilots we are looking to grow those pieces and yes mr brown if we're looking for that because many of the students want to be able to have that to look forward to we are looking again the manufacturing program has just exploded and so many of our students will be graduating before they leave here they're going to have jobs and that's the idea so again students at this point before did not have access they could not travel over to get those classes before so it became restrictive by opening this up it becomes more inclusive and gives them more pathways and more again additional supports because we are going to continue to invest in trauma and forum instruction we have said that we would uh provide uh training and certification for those teachers that are working with students that um to help train them in that um as well so again um this is the big concept that we have like i said we're starting with three we're almost rebuilding the program here but build it and they will come we know that there are students that would benefit from this and um so we are going out to identify them and offer choices and our career counselors will help guide students into making those choices so so eric we would have three hearings and then at a subsequent board meeting we would have a vote to close the school based on the feedback that we got from those three hearings is that the way that kind of procedurally this would work yes you have the three hearings at those three hearings you listen to what the community has to say and then ultimately it's up to the board's determination as to whether or not they want to you know close the school or not you would do that at separate meetings yes okay i have a question how does this look if we close the building and we move three high school students into these classrooms at the high school for the period of time in between and then we also get a couple of middle school students in one of the classrooms how does this look regarding pe lunch when we have middle schoolers in the high school how are we going to handle this until that wing is theirs and and i'm not sure how you're going to handle it then if they're going to have their separate facilities or because you're going to have middle schoolers and and i'm really concerned how we're going to integrate all this an hour in just for the next year only are you talking just for next year well and then what are you going to do when you do have that wing because you're still going to have middle schoolers so you're not going to put them in high school classes correct so i'm going to let ms trish talk about the interim and then i can talk about the the building plans that have their own gym their own bathrooms their own wing their own cafeteria okay okay and their own entrance that's what i was getting to gotcha all right and buses so currently um as i shared with you before we'd have the three classrooms we'd have the one classroom for middle school students and then we'll have the two classrooms for high school students we're currently working on schedules so that they would have pe and that they would have lunch um at times when our the high school students are in the classroom and they would be able to have movement so this would not be a situation where they are sequestered in a classroom and they have to stay there we are working on a schedule where they would have movement to use all of the areas in the high school so you actually have open times where the gym would be open or the lunch room would be open and and they would still be segregated per se at this time just because of the situation right if they were middle school i would just say they would be segregated we would just have scheduled times for movement so that we would not have any conflicts so when the high school the high school students are in the classroom that's when the other students the three classrooms would have movement a different bell schedule right okay so are you going to have a mixed pe no no we could we we're working it out where they would have pe by themselves okay so is that what schoolers were separate from high schools you had some yes okay so that's what i'm concerned about that's how we're treating the middle school oh yeah most definitely right we're very cognizant that they're middle school students so okay but i think the public needed to hear how we were doing this right right we're very cognizant that these are middle school students and so we are setting up a schedule where we're very mindful of that so that they would also have that movement but they would not be involved with the high school mec students nor with the other high school students and again their their current pe teacher from what i understand would be traveling there with them and currently right now they have a very small gym class with the one pe teacher that would be replicated at the high school okay thank you for that so you know it's not unusual to have middle schoolers at a high school we just don't typically do it in this area do we do it on turf all right that was a good one but for example when i worked at morgan park we had seventh and eighth grade there did it kind of like mr church said alternate schedule kenwood is another school whitney young is a school that does so there are schools that have middle schoolers i don't know if you ever heard of mark hall mark hall won state in seventh grade that was the first time he was high school state so he won the seventh eighth right all the way through so there it happens um are you talking about regular students though or i i get what you're saying i'm just saying for the sake of having me yeah it's not too long i don't want to throw them in an environment that's going to ruin everything we've fixed or built and you know what's funny about this he just said when he was at morgan park right and you were saying about some classes or whatever you were saying i can say when i was in a i took some classes at morgan park when i was in eighth grade yeah i know that's 50 years ago it was two generations right 50 years ago to that i would say that we are we've had many conversations and we are having ongoing conversations about the safety of the students because obviously they are middle school students but we don't have heightened concerns about that we do not worried about the safety i was worried more about ages a sixth grader is way off from a senior when it comes to their right right but we're talking seventh if i'm not mistaken seventh and eighth graders don't we get sixth graders too yeah sometimes you know some of those kids are pretty young really mentally right right you know and you're putting them that's why i wanted to make sure that we weren't right yeah they would not be co-mingled we would never put any of the middle school students um in any of the classrooms with high school students or vice versa and so that's why we're adamant about having a separate facility for the middle school students because obviously they're middle school students right in their classroom as a matter of fact would be further away from the other classrooms okay any other questions so so what would you like me to do well what i would suggest is perhaps you and i look at the calendar when we could schedule these hearings and then maybe have two associated with our regular meetings one and off time and then the community um on our schedule so yeah and then um we'll go from there okay is that okay with everybody in this mr this aligns with our long-term facility plan right it i mean it it's going towards our goals that we talked about probably a year you know six months ago that at some point we have to address that so this is a positive step towards our a long-term plan it does it aligns you know also with our short-term plan too and that we weren't going to invest any money into nvc at all too so both short and long-term yes yeah remember i mean our short-term plan to put air conditioning in these schools that would have been 6 million dollars to go into nbc that we're not we're not spending so it's it's meaningful so so so when we do have these public opportunities what we are going to be prepared to do is share with the public her whole plan including programming and all that would be prepared to do that right well as opposed to just you know you know how you do the presentation on tax levies and all of that we're going to grab all of this be ready have our programming have our i guess like the president said we already did our short term this is kind of the addition to the high school is part of this process i don't know if it's considered short-term i don't know maybe not but whatever term it is we're going to include that as part of the presentation to the public saying the reason why we're closing mec we're taking this these students from here over here adding more dotted data we'll be able to verbalize and socialize that right that's exactly what i would be sharing with similar to what i just shared today with perhaps more specificity yes and visually and visually i'll do my best with the visuals so be able to test boom boom boom boom boom and give the public all they need to know to know what we're doing so this is good information that i'm learning too from miss trish and and brian and his team and things like that so it's good stuff we've been working very strategically to make sure that this is what we need to do yeah these are big steps they are very big steps and you know we want to make sure that we're doing it right okay so i would take it like one last thing so i would take if you're talking about having three different meetings is that like over three different months three different board meetings as a special or so so what time frame are we looking before we could we could do same month you could do a committee the whole meeting and you could do a regular board meeting and then have a third meeting at an off time okay we could do it pretty so do we want to try to our goal is to try to try to do it before the end of the school year are we going to go into the summer i don't know i know some uncertainties there i think we have to have some decisions before the end of the school year okay this ain't here correct yeah yeah because you don't want to get too late before you know next you know school our staff and our families and our students need to know we need to know what what we're doing okay okay i just have one last thought a big thank you to mr rotell and ms pappas for i know change is hard and just recognize all the great work that you've done at mec and hopefully you're as excited as we are about kind of what the future holds so thank you mr wartil is retiring so so well no nothing let's get a big adventure ahead good night denied change change is good as long as it's positive okay so so thank you very much um any old business we do we will have a need for a brief closed session tonight so i have one quick question that i was asked to ask so that it's on the video are we still checking residency as tough as we do or what we did because i'm getting claims from constituents that when their child is involved in something it appears that many times the other child doesn't live in our district but we don't do anything about it i've told them that's incorrect they must be able to supply documentation but i'm hearing more and more that some local districts are cleaning house per se and they're running before they get expelled and they're ending up in our district so i just want to put that to you face first i said i don't believe it i believe that we're still as strict as we were about registration and verifying things but i would like to hear it from you please oh mr surma i'm so sorry i was trying to give it to her i know you were that's okay though she was doing registration right now yeah we are checking registration every new student is we are checking registration they're required to put the appropriate documents in if there's any question about that it comes to my desk and i review all the documents i don't review every single case but um you know they have to have the required amount of documents along with transfer forms if the student is transferring in uh from the illinois school so we still are checking that on a regular basis and as strictly as we were before are we no longer using that firm we were using the investigations firm we use them on special cases i will tell you that we have not used them that much this year at all it's national investigations is the company we're referring to but we really haven't used them that much this year there's a special case that i need somebody to investigate i will normally you know if there's a situation that has come up that there's a question about things you know i usually call first you know and that and have a discussion with the parent of that try and take it from there but if we need to do some investigating the news national investigation i think in the most part we probably have only spent i wouldn't even say a thousand dollars this year okay any other old business the only other question i had mr sherman is do you know if you'll when you may be able to provide an update on your program for work orders and stuff just to see where i knew i threw some information in one of the fyis bill yeah i don't remember but i can do that i i guess i i should ask do you want that on a on a monthly basis at a board meeting yeah i prefer that if you can and if you put it in the fyi that'd be great just to glaze through it one of the things i was actually thinking of doing is making it as part of the board financial report even or i can keep it separate i can do no that way yeah that's fine either way whatever it is included is part of that so it's actually in the consent agenda and you've got it and it's public for everyone okay excellent thank you okay any new business okay um can i have a motion to go into closed session for for the purpose of the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of the specific employees moved this is closed session number two three three uh two in this yes okay so we had bill bill 72nd okay roll call please brown is and i dr hall hi mrs galbraith hi mrs walters hi mr sowalis aye vice president rule aye president albrecht aye motion carries we are in closed session at eight o'clock and uh what do you think about half an hour about a half an hour we won't have the only business we'll have when we come back is adjournment so thank you all righty [Music] can i have a motion to we are
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okay so that and we always get students who you know move in as well so we always leave a little bit of breathing room um you know we had um was it one group that we had like 90 about we started the school year with i think about 90 or 91 and we ended the school year with like 96 or 97 um and that you know can make a significant impact so we leave you know a little breathing room because it really is just meant to fill in you know extra seats how much demand should you expect [Music] so um [Music] you know today we just had two calls i'm not sure what rates they were but we're you know we're getting our applications in um but you know the thing is is that they can um you know they have a certain deadline once we accept them you know to say yes i want to go but then two days before school starts they can be like no thank you [Music] well let's hope that we get more jacks right list was not chosen we will contact them and say that there is nobody but you know once school starts in the morning with a month or two and somebody gives me a call [Music] what's the significance of 90 um because in the middle school especially we have four sections um we have four sections of um in each core content area so four classes um so it just keeps the numbers right around 20 anywhere from 20 to 22 in each one in each class so am i understanding correctly then like adam said these are costing us an extra 11 000 per kid yeah because it's a 16 000 expenditure we get five in for them jeff just said it cost thousand dollars to educate a child in our district yeah that's the average cost but when you're when you're talking about school choice like that number is it's basically filling an empty seat we're not hiring more teachers to educate these school choice kids we're basically filling a seat and getting five thousand dollars so they lower that probably lowers our per people cost if we take that into consideration if you average yeah average everything out yes but you you know when you take the school choices and you you get the lifestyle the 16 000 sort of baked into teacher salaries and materials and all of that yeah i understand the high school level more than i understand at the elementary school so i think we talked about that i'll have some questions but i get the high school sections and the way your those things are all set up that you think are a sense to have balance classes across all the years do we have to do school choice [Music] say historically school choice has added some very nice diversity to our district that hasn't always been there okay so negotiation subcommittee the update on that is that we're meeting on tuesday march 22nd i'm sorry oh i'm sorry i don't think there's anything later on my dad [Music] third grade one and fourth and two of them is how many classes do you have in those fourteen years so uh next year three thirds two fourths and three tests students if you add one in whereas both third and fifth will be in the high keys i have problem with that personally when it comes to school choices i get to high school i i get less [Music] especially in the school that is somewhat under club digital distribution perfectly expensive for pbs compared to um i ems to see why we should add that if i helped you one year because of my budget [Music] school where we've been offering problems the last few years i've set the budget we've been spending more out of um school choices especially the last few years [Music] we've had quite a few really wonderful students joining the [Music] you chose those grades because that's where you feel like you at least have some wiggle room yep yeah then the fourth grade was a was a tight half that went up i felt like adding one of those i wasn't going to overdo it i tend not to make recommendations bigger than that makes sense [Music] john looking at your third fourth and fifth grade classes which you have how many how many classes [Music] the school berlin memorial is in my room from the tour everything is smaller the town was very determined when they built the building they had they never had big classes so they like the closet is like four feet by six feet the classrooms are smaller than typical um we get above 15 or 16 kids especially older kids kids everything's smaller to the perfect expenditure exactly well because it's fantastical right sometimes but we have fewer kids and we're growing them you know my kindergarten right now is like a 36 that would be big classes for us okay [Music] okay the negotiation subcommittee we are meeting on tuesday march 22nd for our first negotiation meeting with the bbpa anything you want to add megan give me an update all right um the election subcommittee do you guys have any updates i think um yeah later this month the paperwork has been sent into the state so they should know that we have some vacancies coming up so it will be the first election for the regional districts ready um thanks for moving on to business items um at this time i would like to entertain a motion to approve this school broadcast program five year contract because i have a motion so a second sorry did you see it i saw it so all in favor aye foreign i'm an eye as well the motion to approve the school broadcast program by their contract passes um i'd like to have a motion to appoint a member of the committee to as the coordinator to the marion hoffman awards [Music] as well the motion to appoint julie as the coordinator of the marian hoffman award passes um the 2022-23 calendar we have our first read does anyone have any questions or comments i have one really quick comment this is going to sound insane but for a professional development day and i see why it was done professional development day and then would you would the school ever consider doing a professional development team i'm asking that because i know for the elementary it's probably not a big deal maybe it is i don't know i keep my over here that actually we've been sick a lot today after halloween because yeah eating a lot of junk um interesting yeah i don't know i mean i wouldn't oppose it but i don't know if they have this strategically placed somewhere oh you mean instead of like friday or i don't know maybe it's not even this year but some just put it on his store cause i think yeah i think it's a good idea [Music] you sure did yeah [Music] coming out of two years but we already lost so much classroom time i look at this calendar and i see in particular half days of professional development on september 14th which is a random wednesday in the middle of the month after the third and third week of school and the same thing in the middle of january so i look at this and i ask whether we can look at this and consider a different approach to the professional development to perhaps limit the number of half days we have on the calendar in order to maximize the number of hours we have in the classroom those two are the ones that stand up to me more than any i also look at the half days for parent-teacher conferences both at the condo and at the elementary schools and i wonder whether or not the half day of sending this kid to school in the morning could instead be professional development but i i did feel that half days are a challenge for parents for students and in particular given that we didn't have it in school at the end of 2020 on the school two days a week in most of 2021 i really have uh concerned with continuing to include half days of caffeine and your suggestion we suggest that we combine into a half days and then put it after halloween that would be fine selected because there's professional development available statewide or participating or are we you know this comes from years past of changing these kinds of dates or pd and arranging them in a number of different ways and so we try to do the half days historically because we get to keep count those as teaching days in the calendar for destiny but that's not great for students i get them to create potentially teachers but i think for students i prefer 180 full days in school for example as close to 180 days as we can have of students in school from 8 to 30.
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and at this point i'll happily take some questions from you thank you for your time we have questions for zach uh thanks zach for the presentation well done you've done a lot of homework here a lot of great lessons learned um you've widely sought data from other cities that's all really highly commendable um so really well done um presentation wise everything looks fine to me but the one piece that i keep coming back to is who's gonna implement this and who's gonna enforce it i'm sure you've faced this question before i'm sure it's coming out down the road here a little bit 23.
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right so we can we can do that and we can combine those days if it impacts again the teaching data center of teaching days we have in school we can change that i mean if that's something that the school committee is interested in doing we can we can do that but i think we also have a problem i don't know if this affects the negotiations with teachers [Music] training that are taking place on those days it's just a preference that happens through the years of school committees and and teachers i would say more so school committees and then there was a whole group the school committee members that did not want to hack dates even for holidays yeah i think before thanksgiving always made sense is [Music] i i hear what you're saying but i disagree i mean i i think i'm all about balance in life and i think kids i remember being a kid looking forward to the half day is you know and again this is a very one-sided view meet up at the playground with a friend go home have lunch and it's just like kind of a fun day and then you know the teachers get to do their pd stuff um also i don't know if this is a thing or not i remember when i was a kid again they would place days on the calendar and try to keep the schools closed at certain times you know okay we're getting a lot of germs in here or we've been going like three or four weeks straight they need something to break it up i don't know if that's what goes into this rationale or not i always thought it was but i don't have a problem with them i um but i do see what you're saying how there's probably a huge group of parents that that's just a big inconvenience for um the first two weeks january are there's no full days the first week's january 23 no more weeks i'm sorry yeah but then there's one two three there's four straight weeks with no breaks until february well we also try to enlarge when you plan days you try to plan them so that you do you know besides the kids having fun try to plan them so the teachers do some professional development and then they put it into action and then they come back some sometime later whether it be next month or so and then they they kind of revisit that so that's really the whole idea and that's part of the reason why most pd is we try to front load at the beginning of the year and so by having half days you can sort of stretch it out so they always have a day to get back together and talk about what they what they implemented based on what they did at the last pd at least the dairy that's how it goes so you have the pd day you implement it and then you cut back and discuss it so it's just not like a one and done so that's why you try to spread it out like that that's the that's the theory behind it again that's why you try to front load uh professional development so that you know it's all at the beginning they can actually use them taking the half day on september 14th in the half day on january 11th in this full professional development day november 1st which would then be acutely hurt in the teachers then you can't do professional development on friday though you can't have one on first and half day on thursday the third and a full day off on friday that would be so you'd have to redo the whole calendar my main point is that i hear what you're saying maximize number of hours students are in school especially what's happening last two years in the data representative tonight the other thing i want to mention to tag on what jeff was just talking about we're also looking at the teachers have asked also to have half days so they have to help them more frequently through the different months there are some districts that have a half days once a month or even some districts still have them once a week so you know that so that has all been talked about in the past and i think this was also a way to address giving teachers more professional development time to work together without compromising students in in school during those days and spreading it out so we have leveraged a couple more times for them although it's unfolding for them she still gives them two hours worth of time to work together or on trainings or whatever we're planning to do as it's two months time period but so you're saying these half days count as a full day of teaching for kids yeah so i'd be okay having more half days so long as that gets made up somewhere in the construction that's okay that's one right like like to have but that doesn't count as a learning day right so these half day pd days you're getting eight hours eight hours counting towards your instruction but you're only getting four hours of actual instruction that's like you said but by having four updates you're losing i mean that's short changing the kids the short changes the taxpayers is short changing everything sometimes you just you know you just you're just visiting a small topic and then you know it's a half day of work and then you go put into action then it's not it's just wasted time sometimes in a full day too so yeah you know there is a need for happiness there is a place for them i would say not an entire calendar but there's a place for half days they do have good use and you know you can't measure everything by the minute you know the quality of what you get sometimes is yeah i don't necessarily know that what we saw tonight means kids need more hours in the classroom i think to julie's point as we start to normalize our schools hopefully that's what kids need more so than just physically being in the classroom more hours can i just bring up one thing um we'll take a look at this because we're still looking at some of the requests from the teachers one of the things that came up from the teachers is good friday that was a day that i believe we just started we have off in one of the committees when i was here asked that it would not be the day off um again it gets me up at the end of the day off it gets made up at the end teachers have asked that it'd be a day off again um that's the that's what we get um when is the friday the date yeah seven people i believe that's it right crispy but i know it was changed when i was here it was at a request of the school committee to say and maybe a minute was it ever half day no it was off though was the day it was right it was off and then it was i think it went back and forth i mean honestly it was off then it was on then we saw um an issue with attendance and then just back off it was it was it was an off day when i got here and that change was just made within the last few years but the teachers have asked about is that something you'd want to consider having it off again like certain certain religions and is it passover around them too like i don't know bad with that kind of stuff but yeah april 17th though any other comments or questions about the calendar can we vote next week next we're sorry i know it feels like [Music] or questions and that's the policy regarding masking so i guess i'm not seeing where what jeff spoke to earlier is incorporated in this i guess that it would be any decision to require face covering in school buildings or investment requires a vote by school committee unless otherwise requirement all right that makes sense um can you guys like explain what you're thinking um a written plan that describes how teaching and learning will be facilitated for those skills or visual expression of the teachers who would have to provide this written plan the very last number two the implementation of any required masking or plan or policy and ddrsd by voting the school committee must include these parameters or written a plan that describes how teaching and learning will be facilitated for those skills or visual expressions of the teacher spaces are necessary or helpful for the student learning do you mean the school committee needs to put together a written plan we would with the schools would you know it would be basically you know what johnny's just talking about today you know what they're doing to to help to help students who suffer because of falling behind because they haven't asked so and is that something you feel capable of doing in this fair i'm pretty seriously [Music] any questions comments no more options all right so that's our first three we already did on the first reading of the wilson police department the mou uh the elementary literacy coach coordinator job description that's the first treat as well does any any questions or comments you clearly see you're going to want to you're going to want to have your name on mousse [Music] all right we already did the school choice recommendations well our next dates are april 5th um for our school openings may 2nd if needed and may 24th anybody have any other comments before we return all right is there a motion roll call mike yes megan hi adam julie hi i am
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just want to make sure that you're kind of watching how you're committing um this will be a pretty big program to implement if you have 31 500 units that have to be looked at in a couple years timeline that's a lot of people involved in a lot of information that's going to be flowing so just maybe you could comment on your thoughts there and and what kind of a size group you might have that would be question one and then who was part of the task force you've had um would be good to comment on thank you pretty great questions thank you uh commissioner hook um the um the exist this the excuse me the green rental housing policy as written is designed to be incorporated with the existing uh rental housing inspection process so um we already are inspecting on a two and a half year cycle that gives our inspectors approximately 9 000 units inspected per year and these these requirements would just be tacked on to that um and so there will in that in that period between when council may decides on this if they do choose to pass it part of that six-month delay in launching the program until the start of 2023 is so that we can get our inspectors up to speed and make any necessary staffing changes um and to your second point um we asking who the task force was we practiced throughout the task force and agreed upon at the beginning of every task force meeting chatham house rules which are to share the ideas that were presented but not the names of the individuals and so while task force members are welcome to identify themselves as participants in the task force um we are going to respect their um their their identity by not revealing that so um not not to sound uh uh i'm hiding anything or whatever whatever but um um the task force members are welcome to identify themselves but like i said this uh what we agreed upon at the beginning of every task force meeting thank you other questions or comments councilmember riggs yeah thanks um i wanted to there was a stat that you um presented at the beginning um that i want to make sure i understand was it just around 50 of all rental units are you said single owner what what does that mean single property owners and so um that means that um that the owner of that unit only owns only rents one unit that's what i thought it meant i just want to make sure because that's i'm surprised at the number i would have thought um okay so so and it's 50 over percent 50 of our rental properties that only have just there's just one okay yeah okay and so that leads i guess to the um next question so within and which is where i assume there'd be the most pushed back in around this from landlords the upgrading of um you know upgrades that need to be done within eight years right is that and so the only thing that sort of exempt from that if you don't have energy efficient appliances would be kind of that if you had gotten a gas heater that was 95 efficient or more is that right everything else would need so you know dishwashers or water heaters or heaters or any everything needs to be done within the next eight years is that right correct okay um and does this include if there is a if this is an owner-occupied rental as well uh so there is a already a mechanism at the rental housing services to identify which units get inspected and which do not which are owner-occupied or not owner-occupied and these uh requirements would fall under that same purview so so if it's being inspected at all by the city it would need to be it would need to meet these standards um if there has already been a mecha if uh determination that it is not being inspected by the city then it won't need to meet this okay um and are we um since a lot of these appear to be you know more kind of folks who consider mom and pop operations um that may not have you know a fair amount of um money set aside for kind of upgrades within the next eight years are we anticipating um trying to do bulk buys or anything that might be sort of reducing these costs or you know how are we anticipating that great question um the osi loves bulk buys and we would will pursue that opportunity wherever possible we've seen that success through the likes of the solarize program and we've already begun exploring ways that we could tie that over to things like heat pumps and other appliances um so certainly there there will be assistance wherever possible um we are going to continue tenaciously pursuing any funding opportunities possible um i will mention that should the climate millage pass in november that there could be some funding opportunity available through that as well to help offset the delta between the cost of replacement and the more efficient unit that said we we've looked at what that delta is between the cost of replacement and the more efficient unit and on most appliances it's just a few hundred dollars um so about 300 maybe for the water heater or for the furnace it's a little bit more than that but overall the the cost demand for the standard replacement the the cost demand over the standard replacement is not great um and i just wanted to also make a quick clarification um this is nuance but i just want to point out that it's 50 of the properties are single owners not 50 of the units and so um it just makes more sense okay that makes more sense um and i guess i mean this is obviously super important um i i just can imagine you know this there's the tug here between um the affordability of the lack of affordability that we already have in our community and kind of a rapid push to to do a lot of improvements and in homes that are obviously likely to be passed upon down onto tenants um so oh and then um the energy conservation class point thing i was wondering is that something we're anticipating having classes that are we anticipating hosting classes that tenants could sign up for because otherwise it seems like there might not be much consistency to the classes that people go to in terms of information that goes out yes we have been exploring certain classes that have already been offered by some of the organizations that we've worked with such as rmi or the usdn and incorporating those existing classes into our own but we also want to be able to offer that flexibility to tenants and landlords to choose which works for them and so if if this is to move forward there will be a list of classes that you can attend um sometimes they're offered through the epa sometimes they're offered at the county level and so we want to we're trying to offer as much flexibility to this as possible okay well thanks um impressive work thanks for the update do we have other comments or questions i i have a few um questions and comments um i don't exactly understand how this works um is this a mandatory program or in order to get a green rental certificate you need to get 65 points so you could still be allowed to rent in the city of ann arbor if you just blew this whole thing off or you had a swiss cheese rental with 50 year old appliances um and got 5.0 points whatever is explain that to me i didn't understand that uh thank you chairman it's a great question and an important clarification the way the green rental housing program has been designed is that all rentals will be required to meet some to meet each of these standards the checklist is an alternative option to a performance um uh pathway so you can get a hers rating without needing to do the checklist and satisfy the recommendations that are being provided by the hers rater or you can get the prescriptive or you can follow the prescriptive checklist and just get your point minimum but you will have to do one or the other in order to get your certificate of compliance to rent was that clear to anybody else that was not clear to me so i would ask that in preparation for the public sessions that you make that very clear in the documentation um and granted this was i mean you know i didn't have a chance to look at this in detail i looked at it late this afternoon um but that was not not clear to me so i think that's really important um and there's probably a host of other questions that i have i'll throw some of them out in comments and i don't necessarily expect answers so uh there are a lot of rating systems most prominently lead which is probably the one that's best known by lay people that has like silver gold platinum um was there any consideration of having a silver glow gold platinum type of um rating where someone could get a higher a higher certification level was that is that something that's possible or um even contemplated um yes uh we this was something that was explored what we decided was that the city's not interested in being an independent raider or um uh being able to identify how well things qualify um we we just want to set a we want to be as simple as possible that is in response to what we heard from some landlords which were that there is already a sense that the rental housing process is already somewhat confusing and or burdensome and so rather than make certain like different qualifications we streamlined it and stuck with one and just said meet these qualifications or not great question okay so another question is the question posed by mr garber and that is we have as i understand it a requirement um if i wrote it down correctly in section 8 5 28 that already requires a certain level of compliance and improvements and it sounds like that's not being enforced whatsoever um based on well i can't say whatsoever it's not being enforced um broadly or uniformly and i'll just give a 30 second anecdote my nephew is a phd student at university of michigan he rents a part of a 2200 square foot home built in he and his roommate occupy one floor there are four people with significant others on the second floor and in the winter time they split the electric bill the electric only bill and it is they their share is one half it is 300 a month so that's on on top of gas so there are probably people that are sitting up there in a drafty room that have um electric uh baseboard or you know strip heaters or space heaters that are running constantly in order to generate a 600 um electric bill and so what i'm wondering you know and they're doing that probably because the home hasn't been weatherized so what i wonder is are we putting something in place that is well put maybe put it differently do we have something that really should be enforced and really will get us a big benefit and what is going to ensure that what we put in place is any better than what we have right now good question the uh unfortunately it's gonna it's difficult to uh speak to this uh anecdote that you that you provided without knowing more information it's it's very possible that it did meet the weatherization requirements and the inspector saw that um that those requirements were satisfied um but i mean there's a 19 yeah it's 120 year old and so that's that's where i think the leverage and the difference comes um it enters the picture with this green rental housing program because it takes a far more holistic approach than relying on some weather stripping we want to be examining the entire building and if every building is required to meet these either the prescriptive checklist or a performance pathway then we do believe that there that the the science and the data is there that it will improve that standard for rentals that are like that um and i i i feel for um this relative of yours it's something that we heard a lot from tenants during the task force and um that kind of rental is particularly where a lot of this policy is focused uh we really wanted to we worked really carefully to balance um the the the tug and pull between elevating the the quality of of rentals in terms of energy efficiency and comfort um without burdening um landlords and like commissioner briggs already mentioned um that's that's something that's important to consider when it's not a large company and even if it is a large company we're not trying to burden them with with extraneous costs um this this program isn't about um burdening anyone we we just want to make sure that there is a standard expectation um if i may i'll i'll share um in response to to the to what you shared uh chairman risky that there are some tenants who sign a lease and without knowing what the energy expectations are and get into the unit and learn that they're paying 350 a month for um for their energy bills and that's precisely what this agreement housing program is is aiming to address that is energy burdensome to many residents where the rent is already somewhat prohibitive for some residents um the rent cost alone adding that unexpected energy cost on top um is it's really important for us to to address that as much as possible and so that's why we're trying to walk that fine line of making sure that we're bringing up the standard rentals without burdening but also um improving the overall experience for both landlords and tenants so just one other general comment i'll give a brief example i'm when we refer to the checklist that's this form where you get different points correct correct yes so um i have um a specific request and that is that that be provided to commissioners it was not posted um so no one was able to look at it and a concern that i just saw on looking at some of these is a landlord could put solar on the roof could put two kilowatts one kilowatt on the roof get 20 points and someone else could do a lot of ceiling work and go from an ach 50 of six or seven to three and get a handful of points another example is um a a landlord can install air conditioning and get points and i have it sitting here on my desk and many of you have worked with saul griffith and i know the city has interfaced with him electrify america or whatever it's called as his or his his organization and he's basically recommending that no air conditioning unit should be replaced period that we should go directly to heat pumps and so we're giving people points to do something that really never should be done they should we should be encouraging them to spend an extra 500 and go to a heat pump which would then also provide air conditioning um and you know provide the benefits during the heating season where the gas usage is dramatically reduced so i think there's just to me a lot of questions and i'll leave it at that and i'll turn it over to commissioner hookum to provide some additional questions john you kind of stole my thunder because i was doing the math with the with the checklist and kind of to tie a few points together i think that your nephew's house does he get a christmas basket every year from dte because they probably really like him as a customer but you know that's the negative side of this right the positive side of where we're headed here would be that same house the 1901 house to using that checklist if they threw a few modules up on the roof did a couple other little things and continue to be an energy hog doesn't really accomplish what we're trying to to get through and i think the checklist is probably going to be the route that's chosen by most people we need to make sure that those loopholes don't exist and i'd advocate that we have a sharper look at that and in the implementation side here coming up to really make sure that we don't have loopholes and that it really accounts for what we want it to do which is making a change um back to your first point john you asked the question of compliance and so i have a neighbor who's a land baron and owns quite a few properties i get dragged into many of them to help them fix various things i can attest to you the 1901 house your nephew's in is not different than a lot of rental units i've been in and so obviously the compliance side of our of the the notice the ordinance that ken cited earlier has not been implemented and will will that question that you raised be answered which is can i the land bearer next door keep going what prevents him from keep going what prevents him from not upgrading um what ordinance what what compliance action what what threatened what threat exists if he chooses not to do that does he get evicted as a rental owner i think we really need to think about that as to how this this movement really gets affected because if it doesn't we just kind of languish then we don't win out and this is a big big area of greenhouse gas reduction we can get as a city we need to make sure that that whole program of getting there works and is not a bunch of loopholes that people work around so thank you thank you to address uh council member briggs's point about affordability and you know this there's a balancing act um between burden and burden to the renter and um what the rental cost is but then also what is the utility cost and then what is the transportation cost and what is the time and transit cost so someone can save rental costs in in ann arbor and live in ypsilanti and then be commuting every single day and you know waste an hour or more commuting and so you know affordability has to be looked at holistically and um i think you know that's one of the questions that i think is really important in looking at this whole program and council looking at it and deciding what the implications are this isn't just something that's a simple uh comparison this is is is going to be relatively complicated um chuck i assume your question was asked correct you didn't have a follow-up okay any other comments or questions i assume we have a couple of other renters here but i i guess no other no other comments at this time correct okay good um we also have a resolution uh that is posted to legistar for our consideration uh could you put that up let's see so there is a preamble or something like that there we are here yep hopefully people had a chance to look at a memorandum uh can we um get a motion to consider the resolution and a second right uh so we have a motion from commissioner garcia in a second from commissioner mccoy any discussion or comments about the resolution did you scroll back up then missy or down i should say i guess so it's a short resolution any comments or questions so i i have a personal opinion um and that is um i'm not willing to uh vote in favor of this because i have a lot of concerns with the resolution so i'm going to explain you know my vote up front um you probably picked up on some of those comments um i recognize that based on the timetable that was presented by zack i'm i believe that if we don't approve this tonight then we still have um the opportunity for the public comments and everything else to happen and still vote on this um at our next meeting um so that that is my my position i don't know if anybody else wants to comment on their vote uh before doing so well this is a first reading right john is the first reading right well we we did vote on on the other one so yeah this actually from a staff's perspective we would prefer that you not vote on this tonight which is meant to be a first reading because we want to go get public comment and be able to bring it back with the revisions based on okay so um this will account then as first reading and we will bring it then back to uh the commission based on staff's recommendation how's that stop very good okay we have one more point other than updates and that is a second reading of the resolution in support of workforce housing and i submitted an updated copy of that so let me see if you can bring that up while i talk and that was based on comments that uh an input that commissioners gave during the first reading um and um those were included in the meeting minutes and then the same resolution was considered by the environmental commission and i watched that i didn't participate in it but i watched it and i had an exchange with uh chair brown uh vice chair mitchell and one of the commissioners and um made some changes um and those are generally noted in the right hand column so those are sort of details what i would what's not noted in the right hand column are just a few things that i think are important the many of the whereas clauses were reordered so that they are grouped um in a way where they make more sense so you know a lot of the ones related to statistics on the growth of enrollment and things like that those are all grouped together um the same thing about what the implications are and relative to the climate action plans that the city has the eight to zero plan and the pccn recommendations those are grouped and so on and so forth um so those are changes that are reflected in here there are still a few things that in my view need to be refined and this is something that um would then for example you can see at the bottom of the pages displayed um xxx jobs that's something that um we need to get i mean the staff or council um needs to get from the university before um finally uh finalizing the the wording of the the resolution before it goes to council assuming that is indeed the case um so um without me just rattling on um what i thought i would do is um open this up for discussion we already had a first reading and so we've already voted to consider the resolution and we had a second so do we have any additional comments or thoughts i reread it actually myself and there's a couple of things that maybe i thought we could um add to strengthen the resolution um i think it was uh that is um now in the title but there's two other places um that i think it probably belongs in the resolution um it's in one one resolved clause but it probably could go on another one um but i can get into those details i'll open it up for other people's comments or questions if that they want to offer their their insights so it looks like councilmember bricks i was just gonna share that um not specifically related to this um resolution in front of us but just the i think different commissions are taking different approaches to this i know transportation commission when um they reviewed it essentially didn't provide feedback on you know line item changes or substance to the um actual resolution itself and more gave kind of bullet point kind of talking points around um thoughts around around workforce housing and transportation so um you know i don't know what the original lead sponsor of this how how um she'll end up taking this into account um but um i think it's that's correct i know i i know having spoken to councilmember as well that she's appreciative of the the work that energy commission is doing on this yeah um she has seen this latest update um i shared it with her and um i sent an email to uh chair mills of the planning commission and asked what um they were doing and i shared this version and i've not heard back from her so i don't know if anybody knows what planning commission is doing with this no okay so um what what i would recommend is um in the final um where uh resolution resolved clauses they're in the first resolve clause um and it reads um the city administrator will provide an opportunity to um provide workforce housing and you know i i think um given that we have an 820 plan and given we are calling for um both at the university um for net zero um that we include something that says provide um net zero or net zero ready maybe is a better way of putting this i don't know if uh commissioner peck has as a preference one way or the other um you know if the zero code is adopted at the state level and that's adapted at the city then that would that would essentially mandate um knew how any new building to be net zero um i don't know uh if staff has a has a position on whether net zero or net zero ready is important in some of these these resolve clauses or not uh so my understanding is the university isn't going to build new buildings unless they're net zero um obviously they're ones like the new hospital tower going up that was designed you know years ago really the starting and so it didn't really unfortunately didn't get designed that way it will be made net zero uh as the geothermal heat pump plan builds out but you know they just the new building the first new building after the commitment to carbon neutrality is being built and it is being built um i think net zero uh so i i don't know that for sure actually but it's being built low carbon um and of course uh it will be net zero eventually um so so missy missy as everybody saw just typed in net zero energy uh missy there's another use of net zero probably should also say net zero energy and the second to last resolved clause right in front of the affordable or third third to last additional units of net zero energy affordable workforce housing right there yep and i think maybe in the in the title there's also net zero mentioned but not net zero energy and that should probably um yeah right after 2000 units exactly yeah the other thing i'd like to point out is i you know i think i've said this before but i'm pretty sure the university's gonna be just fine with this okay you know there is a lot of talk about um doing this kind of thing anyhow so there were um based on environmental commission uh input there are two whereas clauses added one recognizing the university for announcing um the new there it is right there um the construction of the new um net zero lead gold undergraduate housing on north campus that's going to be 700 net new um units and those are going to be net zero um and then um also there's a warehouse clause that recognizes some of the things that the city has been doing also to improve housing availability oops yep thank you so my recommendation is is that this is uh we apply the 80 20 rule in this case it's probably more like the 90 9010 rule that this will be scrutinized by council and by staff before this is acted on so unless somebody has any other comments i would recommend that we take a vote on this okay so we have agreement on that so could i get a show of hands and voices all those in favor of the resolution um as we see it um please say i or raise your hands anyone opposed no one opposed any abstentions very good thank you it passes unanimously thank you very much so we are now on the downhill ramp osi reports thanks chamberski um there's as always a lot going on i'm going to send to everyone after this uh the entire list serve the newsletter that we sent out this week to residents because that's kind of the easiest punchiest way to see what's going on within the office um i also wanted to share i think zach left us before he could share this that the checklist and materials for the green rental housing are on the websites will also circulate to all the green rental housing website there's a story in m-line 2 that has a link to that but if you want to dive more deeply in before the next discussion uh please do so and zach mentioned we are really trying to get a lot of public feedback and doing outreach so that launches tomorrow really excited to see where that goes um i also wanted to share that our very own commissioner peck is going to be doing an event with us on the 16th we put this together i can't even believe this yesterday morning i actually organized all of this uh it's an opportunity to hear about the most recent intergovernmental panel on climate change report that dropped last week uh pretty dire findings from that analysis but pax agreed to do a presentation kind of overviewing the main takeaways and then corey connolly the climate and energy advisor for the state of michigan is going to join us to talk about what it means for michigan and how we can get more actively involved in the state's climate work we'll of course have local stakeholders but we wanted to kind of talk about this at different scales so please circulate that widely it's not just grant or work for anyone in michigan or more broadly that wants to participate we also wanted to share uh in terms of the energy assessments the options analysis the feasibility study and the seou advancement the rfp has been drafted for those we've had some experts kind of help us look at language thank goodness um you know we have wonderful input from the commission the resolutions that were passed actually gave really great direction and lots of other cities have done this so we've been able to pull from rfp language from other places currently that rfp is in legal for final review and then it will be released for bidding uh we are making sure to be really thoughtful and intentional in the drafting of that rfp i anticipate it will be on the streets in the not too distant future but that is for both the options analysis and for the traditional feasibility study we're also working on the microgrid assessment for the sustainable energy utility that's taking a little bit more time that's more nuanced because it's not just a microgrid study it's a microgrid study with two utilities and so there's different kinds of technical questions so we've got some experts that are helping us really make sure we frame the rfp in the right way and i want to call out uh commissioner how come he's been helping quite a lot uh in some of that space so thank you very much chuck really appreciate it and then just ending on one piece of good news that you won't see in the newsletter but i want to share with you all since last month we heard about the bryant neighborhood project we found out uh not too long ago that we successfully won a solar moonshot award and so we will be helping two residents uh get solar or free and there are two residents that suffer from pretty high energy burden and we're potentially risking losing their home and this will stabilize those homes for them and so they're getting energy for free and we're really excited about that i just wanted to share and i want to call out again community action network for their incredible partnership in that journey those are just some of the punch points newsletter coming soon enjoy the way too many pages i think it's eight pages of updates of things uh that are going on in osi thanks jim thank you missy missy would you be willing to comment on the questions that were asked by callers in terms of uh plans on the feasibility study and timetable and things like that or do you want to comment on that at a future time or do what's your stance on that yeah i i don't know i have much more to add than the the update that we shared that the rfp will be public um and you know everyone will have access to the rfp and to bid on it should they be interested that timeline is um as soon as possible while being really thoughtful and intentional we've had really great um i assume most interest is in the more traditional feasibility study based on the commenters that did call in that there's great templates i mean these studies have been done so it's it that that portion was actually quite simple to draft itself um we are we understand the urgency around this we also understand this is potentially the biggest decision that the city will make and so we want to make sure that we frame the rfp the right way and get responses in the right in the right manner that are going to be robust and really intentional and purposeful so we can make a good decision so we're trying to go fast but with purpose in a space so i um i've shared with council members too our office is is not going to show fidelity to a set time we're going to show fidelity to an outcome uh updates from commissioners like commissioners are approaching their bedtimes uh so working group updates um as far as i know um there's only one working group um commissioner calvin garcia do we have any update or any news from the transportation electrification working group uh the no really not really the electric vehicle readiness ordinance is still um under the process of being updated and um there's really no news to share okay and then an update from the environmental commission um i i guess the um workforce housing um okay so uh this is the second opportunity for public comment um so persons may comment for up to three minutes if you're watching on ctn please call four eight 888-788-0948 seven five excuse me eight seven seven eight five three five two four seven and enter the meeting id nine three seven six seven five one six eight one nine this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hands one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand please press star nine on your phone and you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area meet television for background noise so that we may hear you clearly and finally state your name and address at the beginning of your comments all right caller ending in one three four welcome back mr crapper uh thank you dr stultz chair mursky ken garber again 28 haverhill court good presentations tonight on green rental housing i have my suggestions and i'll try to attend one of the public sessions thank you for holding those i want you to know that a week from tonight the planning commission will consider the site plan for maple cove 2 70 apartments in three buildings proposed for the corner of miller and maple the developer intends to use gas heating planning commission now has final say over projects like this that are not seeking a zoning change so its vote on tuesday is final approval is pretty certain for the last two years i have been doing planning commission public comment to urge developers like this to switch from gas to heat pumps i'm typically the only one raising raising this issue in some cases they've actually done it not because of me they couldn't care less but rather because they need rezoning to go forward that's not the case here um how much does it matter according to the american gas association the average michigan household requires 103 million btus a year for heat that's a hundred thousand cubic feet of gas or one thousand therms at 13 kilogram co2 equivalent emissions per therm a conversion factor that takes into account upstream emissions that comes to 13 metric tons co2 equivalent emissions per household per year just from burning gas multiply that by the 70 units and you get 910 metric tons co2 equivalent emissions per year from this project just from gas combustion for perspective mr barr in his presentation tonight on city solar called out the 2700 metric tons of co2 equivalent emissions that will be offset by the city facility solar project great gain for sure but maple cove ii this one small apartment complex if it proceeds with gas heating will wipe out fully one third of that gain that's how big an impact gas combustion has on greenhouse gas emissions and these emissions are locked in for the next 50 years so i guess my larger point is that a lot of our work is being undermined by new rental developments like maple cove 2 that employ gas heating you can say well there's nothing we can do right now about developers who insist on gas i'll have something to say about that at a future meeting in the meantime i'll be there next tuesday pleading with the maple cove developer a guy named mo kashim to switch out his gas furnaces for an air source heat pump system i'm not hopeful on this thank you for your comments do we have any other callers missy we do not chamersky okay i just wanted to mention one thing i forgot to mention it earlier to commissioner peck's statement about u of m building codes there's actually a webinar tomorrow at 11 a.m it's called the u of m um climate action webinar series campus buildings and emission reductions and it's my understanding that they're going to present their building stamp proposed building standards based on broad recommendations that were in the pccn report and it's my understanding there's going to be a deeper deeper dive in the uh implementing a20 webinar series that's put on by the 2030 district next month so if anybody is interested in details of those shoot me an email and i will get you that information at least how you can register for those i should have announced that earlier any other comments or questions before i join the meeting seeing none thank you all for your participation missy thanks for your staff for their presentations and sacrificing part of their evenings as well as yours and um at 8 25 pm i'm adjourning this meeting thanks everybody and have a great rest of your evening you
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we need to order all right the roll call mr hopkins is absent mr cruiser this second's here mr guthrie mr robinson here dr dooley here dr cheval and mrs burns eric you want to go on are you it's adoption of the agenda [Music] no you have to do adoption of the agenda first miss duncan i and mr crozier all right okay now everyone please stand and join me i pledge allegiance to the climate of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all the next argument is information items and i had talked to mr um hopkins about having someone on the board with me give a report so i would like to just tell everyone that last saturday night at the elks we had an award banquet and at that time the certain elks and citizens of the community were given awards and i am very happy to report that mr lonnie guthrie became aho citizen of the year we need to get there it was for his work at the ambulance for his work with sports with his work with kids with his work at the school board and other things as well but those are the main items all right the consent agenda may we have a motion for the consent agenda i'll make wall street mr guthrie miss stephen i mr cruznerage mrs robinson hi all right the next item that bill um um the board is the personnel would you like for me since we didn't have a space station to go through here the first one is the essential classified resignation last year in april during the meet and prayer agreement uh carmen ochoa one of the school secretaries uh submitted her resignation by a certain deadline it was april 15th and she received a small stipend to be attached to her salary this year her resignation at that time stayed she resigned and at the end of may uh her situation changed which which we're glad for because that's the time of year we all help we can get over there um her situation changed she could work through um in the end of the fiscal year this year so we're changing her resignation we're sending her work agreement from may 31st to uh june 30th so i'll ask the board to prove that and then we would just go on and vote yes quick all right um i need a motion that we would approve the extension of carmen ochoa's uh classified resignation under promotion mr guthrie mr robinson hi miss duncan aye mr cruzenrich okay going on to the next one uh the stink next personal lab is a classified resignation of uh custodian um fausto we call him tito young is to stole him and i'm on support of it which makes me kind of frustrated uh jose all right tito's been working here for about 10 years hasn't he something like that he's been a good employee we will miss him uh regret to uh receive his resignation but i encourage the board to accept it is he retiring or is he going to work may i have a motion to accept the resignation of tito young caution i'll second it mr um miss robinson all right mr eye mr cruz hi leave you with one guy now we hired we got another person um the next personal item is accepting to the classified uh red peripheral resignation uh miss laurie daniels she submitted her resignation last week effective march 1st um third man the board proved that uh her resignation i don't know what we could do if the board didn't improve it's always one of those jokes about we can't we wouldn't padlock anybody's leg to the desk but it's a formality we need to do for personnel okay i'll make motion a second mr guthrie mr robinson hi miss duncan i mr crossing ridge thank you um the next item on personnel is the employment classified employment of the custodial maintenance worker benjamin aguiar aguiar gonzalez mr aguiar gonzalez has children in school and we he we interviewed him his brother his resignation his uh recommendations uh came through it took us a little while we thought we could get this done earlier but his uh references were strong so it's a recommendation that we employ uh benjamin aggie our gonzales as a maintenance custodial position make a motion all right mr guthrie mr ramsay mistaken i mr kirschner at pass 4-1 to hire benjamin angula the next item on the personnel packet and number five is extra pay position employment um we have individuals here that have expressed interest to fulfill vacancies we had the first one is eddie vega edward vega he as assistant baseball coach eddie graduated from high school here he's been living in morenci moved back last spring had a son in school he graduated i think 2009 so i'll recommend eddie's assistant baseball coach last fall we had the resignation of a teacher and he that person was co-junior class sponsor the junior class is rather important jose villa senor one of our teachers has been carrying that by himself over the approaching of spring prom uh the work gets a little crazier and so one of our parents and an employee here marcelia munoz has agreed to be a junior class sponsor which i think is kind of i think it's advantageous to the male and female both with prom and stuff like that to help work on that i recommend the employment of eddie vegas assistant baseball coach and our cellulose as a co-class sponsor for the remaining school year club code junior class sponsor i apologize i hear a motion i will second that miss dungeon i ms robinson aye mr guthrie all right um mr cruz nurse all right it passed four to one to hire edward vega and asella munoz positions of assisted baseball cook and co-junior class sponsors the next item is staff for spring intersection uh teachers as well as teachers aged prayer pros um if one of the things we've done in the past i don't know what dr richard foles wants to do is not we don't have we have less than five kids show up for class we kind of said well we gotta make sure you have five kids yeah this looks like a big number typically we have about 100 students show up for spring break for spring and fall intersection the persons that have submitted a letter of interest and serving as teachers are married to beltran anna silvano chile aaron khan olivia garcia one teacher changed their mind uh mr rigadone richard reagano a new teacher that we hired last board meeting his name was arthur mangingo he's a math teacher i hope i didn't murder his name too much alice cadiz um rayleigh um remijo and april caballero pair pros that have expressed an interest to serve and most of these peripherals are working with special needs children as a one-on-one or someone to help those students alejandra figueroa sherry simpson gloria gonzalez munoz rafaela duran breezy nunez isabel silva crystal pacheco samuel hernandez and franny lopez many of those people we had to help students during spring intersection week after next [Music] motion i'll make my second day mr guthrie mr robinson all right miss doc and i mr cruznerage all right okay that's 41.
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welcome everyone welcome heritage middle school clique welcome to the site of the room with that if you would let's stand and have the pledge i pledge allegiance and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you item number four is adoption of the agenda if we could have a motion to adopt tonight's agenda so all right that's their second okay we have two all in favor all right thank you next is call of the public and i do not have of any forms for anybody but is there anybody that is here that did not fill out a form all right next we're going to hold a public hearing regarding the instructional time that model this is an action item in our discussion item but it's a public hearing so i do need a motion to go into tonight's public hearing thank you all in favor aye thank you mr schult so um we had a snow day that um we have to right now we have to make that up and so i was planning to come to the board today and after consulting with the department of education to ask us just to cancel that bit go to 143 a calendar we would still be well within the number of instructional hours that are required so um it's something that we've always done this in the past or if we have a snow day we just come to the board request that well we've consulted with the department of ed and they have changed their own um feeling on how this works for four day four day um two weeks um and really it's in state law there's you know it's the difference between like an and or type of situation where and what they're saying is you can cancel a day of school if you are on a five day week but it's not allowed if you're on a 40 week even though we are we do the same number of instructional hours as a five day week because the not because it wasn't meant that to do that it just wasn't written that way in statute so it's being very literal and if you know who the person is that's involved and i know um miss daniels and mr livingston know who that is that that doesn't surprise anybody so um we're gonna have to make up the day except this is a different way to get solve the same problem and so last year when because of cobit the state legislature came up with what's called instructional time model and this is a different way to um have have instruction that's not the traditional bottoms in seats type of deal and it's really meant so that if there's a need you can do hybrid instruction or home-based instruction through virtual instruction that kind of thing and so um in order to do this and i'll explain what what this is in just a second in order to do this we have to have two public appearance so we're having we'll have a public hearing today that's what we're doing now we'll have another public hearing in april and then on the april agenda there'll be the request to approve the instructional timeout so this is no reaction no action there's nothing else on the agenda that this is addressing this this is an opportunity for the public and the board to answer or ask questions and get answers out happening so um there's some documents in here but the the uh the key points to an instructional time model other than the number of hours that are required it says instructional hours may be delivered in any day week and course length increments adopted by the itm instructional hours may be delivered through any combination of direct instruction project-based learning independent learning and mastery-based learning an extra instructional hours may be defined to include any in-person instruction and remote construction schools may reallocate minimal instructional time or hours required per course on a per student basis to allow students to spend more or less time as needed on an individual course instructional times and schedules may be staggered for students in courses or other instructional time options may be offered on the weekends or on the evenings to allow students to not attend or complete school days or instructional time at the same time and attendance policies must be aligned to reflect the instructional time and hour policies prescribed in the adopted itm so what we're proposing in order for to meet the needs that we're talking about is this note is to make up the snow day is to use the instructional time model for april 18th which is a currently a day a non-instructional date for that's already in the calendar it's meant as a um snow day makeup day april 18 it's a monday it's the monday after easter and it's the day that we always tend to have awesome so what we're proposing is to make a project or assignment based instruction where the kids would get an assignment the week prior and they would have to complete it and turn it in on tuesday and so they worked on it over the weekend or they could work on the week prior or whatever and make up that time their attendance on that monday is determined by whether they completed the assignment or not and so that's how we would make up the snow day instead of coming in person and um that's what we're proposing and using this this instructional time model to do that um one thing that i told um we discussed this in the district leadership team meeting yesterday is that we want to not right now but over the summer when we have time and when it's not snowing um we want to come up with a plan on how to maybe do this for snow days in the future where if we do have a snow day we don't cancel school it's just using the instructional time model to do a um you know online school for that snow day and then we don't have to make it up but we would come up with a procedure on how to do that and train staff and change parents ahead of time and things like that so then we wouldn't have we wouldn't have to worry about this in the future by using a structural time model to keep the instructional date in place we're just delivering instruction in a different manner now we know that there's going to be kids that don't have computers that don't have the internet things like that but unfortunately we have some resources that you know because of covet and because everything that's happening we've gotten a significant amount of resources we have computer chromebooks that we can give to families that very few families have requested even though the requests have gone out and we have some hot spots that we can give to families so that they can use the chromebooks and along with the hot spot if they have service at their home so that hopefully granted not everyone we have people that live way off the grid that don't have cell phone service and it's just not going to work for them but for a majority of our students we should be able to provide some kind of internet access to them either with their own devices or school district provided devices they just take home and leave home they don't even have to bring them back my guidance is not to this is more you know and and i i heard a hump over there that's more yeah it's more of a um i'd say it affects attendance and it's more of a pass fail type of situation for attendance um the other thing that i that i i made clear is it would not impact perfect attendance so though perfect attendance is based on in-person instruction and that would not affect you know somebody a student that was really what was that was important to them and we'd have those and that's a good thing um that this would if they didn't participate or take advantage of this opportunity to get that um attendance in that day that would not impact their perfect attendance if that's each individual teacher have to keep track of the response for all the people in their classes um yes because well yeah you know they have to take attendance and so they would be responsible for attendance now what's going to have to happen and this is kind of the back end administer administrative stuff is this the teacher cannot take attendance for monday on tuesday so they can't report the attendance on tuesday for what happened monday so there's going to have to be a basically a list of those that are absent that didn't complete that assignment given to the attendance clerk at each school they're going to work with kathleen little who's our student data coordinator and they'll work out the attendance site on that on that part but that each teacher and you know for middle school teachers they're going to have seven of those because they have seven classes that they're gonna have to take attendance for um is there any reporting we need to do to the state or can that all be done in germany that's all done by our student data coordinator so that'll just be there's a form i think the form the the form is in here that the template that she will fill out she will submit she'll do the changes to our calendar because right now it's not a student a non-instructional day and non-student date that will change to a student date and then um but that's all handled by our student data according sort of all in-house oh yeah oh yeah and once and to be honest once you guys approve the instructional time model which again will not happen until april uh once it's approved it doesn't have to be approved by the ade it's your approval is all it takes it's us doing the back end work to make sure it's reporting uh reporting correctly any other questions okay this was just a discussion item only you want to ask the audience if they have any questions audience do you have any questions we have a whole slew of staff here so i don't know if there's any questions about that but um you're working anyway it's not a day off for staff but uh it's because it's in service day that day uh we have an eight hour in service so just please go ahead i'm sorry um how many days are allowed for teachers to submit the absences or present because sometimes students say well i did it but i don't have the work you take the word for it you know how many days i think that's going to be something that's going to be decided on an individual school basis so i i don't want to give an answer but i think that the thing is we don't want to drag it out necessarily so we want something to be timely but at the same time we know that we're not dealing with kids so i think that'll just be handled on an individual school basis because it really you know you guys have you know seven seven periods you guys could have a couple hundred kids that you're dealing with where an elementary school may have 20 to 30.
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of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god and indivisible with liberty and justice for all roll call mrs please president mrs price president mr mcgibbon president mr ellen mr austin all right with that um we have our study session for the 2021 financial statements and the usfr part to introduce our guest uh cynthia the cpa who did you were the primary auditor right yes we also have um the audit partner on the job uh my court okay welcome thank you so with that i think it's greg's show here so i invited cynthia here today so she can go over to the findings within our audit and to discuss any questions that's made to arrive each of those as well as our financial cases i understand the financial statements about 110 pages long so it's really incorporating reading so with that i will turn it over to cynthia whenever go through the audit maybe talk about the process a little bit before we actually go into the findings all right yeah so we were engaged to perform the financial statement audit as well as the u.s department plans questionnaire audit the financial statement audit is more numbers-based so we're looking at the different accounts that the district has such as revenues expenditures the cash that they hold at year end as well as any liabilities that they might have and with that we were also engaged to perform the state audit which is a document put out by the auditor general which is what you have in front of you they put out this document yearly they have 175 questions on it all of which we have to answer either yes the district complied with this requirement or no the district did not comply with this requirement and each questions has like several different requirements within it as well so i think we've calculated about 400 to 450 total requirements that we're testing through this um question here i'll pass it over to mike who's going to go over the financial statements a little bit and then i'll go in more detail into the question here yeah i might understand you don't have the financials hard copy yet it's coming from the printers you've got the electronic copy so i i was going to go through and highlight certain pages but since you don't have it in front of you people just talk a little bit high level but certainly after the meeting if there are other questions contact us through the credit or superintendent we can address those questions if there aren't any with the financials so but i will start aside from the financials there's another letter that you should have received probably last week um it's not i see that it's not attached to this it's the governance communication level and that's something that we issue every year it's really just a high level summary of what the audit is and what we found different different areas in there that talk about qualitative aspects quantitative aspects of an audit talks about the fact that we had no significant difficulties in performing the audit which is obviously a positive it talks about audit adjustments um the fact that there were no disagreements with management the uh various compliance aspects that we're looking at kind of like somebody had just covered and then there's a section in there about responsibility fraud there's a fraud checklist attached to that there's the engagement letter attached to a general representation so i just want to highlight that that's recall requirement auditing standards that we've issued that letter directly to you as board members again just take a summary of the audit um so when you do get a chance you know look through that quickly have we received that i believe i emailed it last friday i mean the financials just came out last last week wednesday so the earliest we would have sent it is last week so yeah it probably was not in time for this agenda but once again it's a summary we're going to cover everything that is mentioned in that letter here today um so as far as the financial statements i'll just kind of move on that um the the financials themselves no different than what we've issued in previous years the you know page one is your audit opinion for fiscal year 22 it was unmodified or clean audit opinion which all in audit opinion means you know when we performed our procedures nothing came about that was the material statement all the various testing that we do on the financial statements nothing came out that indicated that something was materially mistaken whether it's assets liabilities revenues expenditures within the report there's what's called the management's discussion and analysis that is on page seven um the vmdna is really management's ability to there's some year-to-year tables in there comparisons to the prior year numbers and that's management's um you keep going to page seven so it's it's pages seven through 15.
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to call the meeting to order let the record show that all members are present except for christine pritchard please join us for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you we'll move on to b recognitions and celebrations dr kellis thank you madam chair members of the board members of cabinet this evening we're very thrilled to recognize some of our extraordinary teams in the district and their accomplishments in athletics at this time i will allow mr dean to introduce the next two items madam chair members of the governing board dr callus members of cabinet and community members good evening and welcome to this evening's board meeting tonight we are excited to recognize our athletic champions from the winter season both at our middle level and at the high school level as well we had another very successful athletic season and we're excited to celebrate that tonight and so we're going to start with our middle level champions and teams when we call your name we'd like for you to come down to the steps governing board members and dr kelsey we would invite you to please come forward on the steps so that we can take pictures and recognize the accomplishment of our middle level champions and so we're going to start this evening with um our middle level champions in boys soccer and that's mountain view elementary school the mountain view mountain lions boys soccer team come on down guys all right now here's the rule on pictures you have to look at our guy first and then you can look at your parents taking pictures also congratulations again to the mountain view boys soccer team [Applause] continuing on with our recognitions if this evening we would like to recognize the champions of our middle level girls volleyball tournament and that is the marley park mavericks come on down [Applause] shake the handshake thank you thank thank you please christina i'm sorry okay congratulations to marley park give him another round of applause [Applause] continuing on with our recognitions this evening we would like to recognize our girls soccer champions and that's the girls soccer team from canyon ridge come on down ladies [Applause] thank just all right you three that are trying to hide in the back row i know you're front row kids so head that way nice try all right congratulations canyon ridge girls soccer give them another round of applause [Applause] we'd also like to recognize the champions of our dysart middle level boys basketball season and that is also the boys basketball team from canyon ridge come on down guys [Applause] so congratulations canyon ridge boys great job and our last middle school recognition for the evening as you'll recall the governing board will recall this year we have middle schools for the first time and our middle schools are participating in the valley junior high athletic conference this year for the first time ever we had a boys basketball team that was the champions of the valley junior high valley athletic conference with an undefeated season and that's valley junior high conference champions the sonoran heights hawks come on down guys so going there congratulations sonoran heights [Applause] moving on now to our high schools we had another very successful high school winter season with several region champions we also have state champions and national champions but this evening we're here to recognize our section and regional champions and we will start this evening with dysart high school they are the region champions in boys soccer come on down guys [Applause] as they're coming down governing board i will let you know that the dicer high school boys soccer team made it to the round of eight this year at the state tournament um losing to the number two seed southpointe high school lancers in a very close game and and the eventual stage champions all right guys now we have the biggest challenge for the entire season we got to crowd you all into one picture all right come on back and let's crowd in for a picture i think the box okay ready congratulations great job guys [Applause] continuing on this evening we're going to shift to the sport of basketball and we're excited this evening to recognize willow canyon high school's girls basketball team as region champions come on down ladies [Applause] three all right and congratulations again continuing on sometimes it's difficult um as seasons end to get students to be able to attend governing board meetings because they start playing club right away and so that's the case for our next two recognitions but we're excited to have a few people join us and so we're going to start in the 6a conference with shadow ridge high school girls soccer region champions [Applause] congratulations again and our final athletic recognition for the evening in the 5a conference is relocating high school region champs and girls soccer come on down congratulations again ladies [Applause] madam chair that concludes our athletic recognitions for this evening as stated previously we will be back in the first meeting of april to recognize our state and national champions from the winter season thank you dr dean next we'll move on to audience with individuals do we have any there are none all right thank you next we have student update dr kellis thank you madam chair members of the board of members of cabinet like to invite jocelyn poundstone from the dysert student leadership council to present a student update with dr kellis cabinet and community my name is dawson poundstone and i'm a member of the dysart student leadership council at our most recent meeting we continue to work on an upcoming event for all of the high school student councils to come together at this event we will have breakout sessions a keynote speaker and activities our main goal to this conference is to bring all the schools together to be as one we are currently working on getting donations from the community to make this event possible we're also we also showcased for an upcoming super n60 segment we're looking forward to sharing more information and accompl accomplishments with you all thank you justin all right thank you very much next we have the superintendent update dr kellis thank you madam president madam chair members of the board members of cabinet um it's been a great week this week as we wrap up another week just prior to spring break i know there's a lot of hard work going on right now in all the schools but there's also a lot of anticipation for taking a a few days off next week so we wish everybody the very best and that you stay healthy and safe and come back and ready to finish out the year with a strong stretch that's all i have to report thank you dr kellis governing board update i'll start um let's see during love of reading week last week pete the cat and i uh went to several schools and we read to students at countryside canyon ridge and rancho gabriella and thank you so much for the adorable little thank you letters they're they're so cute i also attended uh the sunset heels uh presentation of the musical beauty and the beast and then i just want to give a shout out that this is national school social worker school social worker week and so thank you to all the social workers in the district for all that you do for our students and that we are so fortunate to have the 2021 lifetime achievement in school social work recipient melanie carone i hope i don't mess this up the lastic at ashton ranch in our district so thank you all for what you do that's it just a couple of things uh attended uh beauty and the beast on february 25th sunset hill no i was there before you so there no i'm just kidding um beauty and the beast sunset hills uh mr basgard and miss brunier it was an awesome performance thank you very much um i could tell that the kids had a fabulous fun time on stage and so continue doing what you're doing it was an awesome and yes i sang again in the back even though they couldn't hear me i still sang in the back uh at on february 26th they attended the district honor band um for the junior high and high school students it was awesome um but i love attending things like that march 1st 2nd and 3rd read across america i was at canyon ridge for miss isla's uh class rancho miss dents class and then riverview for miss c's class loved the passion of all three of those classrooms the kids had a ball and um honestly so did i and on march 3rd and 7th i helped to spread sunshine like a lot of us did being a part of the dysart heroes patrol there were some tears and there was some shock and astonishment oh my gosh i won i won you got to be kidding and so when people actually open up those um booklets and see all the great things that other people write about them it does bring a tear to their eye and so congratulations to all of the recipients it was great to hang out with dr kellis assistant superintendents renee and ryan our camera dude always the best so please have a great safe spring break come back refreshed ready to go so we can finish the year off with a nice bang so that's it i did not have a chance to do as much as the other board members but i did make sure to attend the read across america with countryside elementary i read to both miss pool's class as well as mrs carlovich's class and just such a fun time always at countryside and thank you so much for welcoming me back all right i was also fortunate enough to be able to read at countryside rancho gabriela and canyon ridge always a good time with those students wonderful wonderful campuses thank you next we have item e1 consent agenda aye dr kellis thank you madam chair um if there is a member of the board who would like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda this would be the time i move that we approve the consent agenda items as presented with the exception of item f3 i would like to move that to action discussion i'm sorry second three tracy there we go she said yes it's not me all right motion carries moving on to item h1 recommendation to improve oh i'm sorry what are we on g1 oh information discussion sorry i scrolled down too much g1 dr kellis thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet dr croto will introduce this item thank you dr callus madam chair members of the board superintendent kellis cabinet guest tonight we continue with our board monitoring of adoptive policies tonight we bring you the second half of section 10 10.35 to 10.69 and at this time we are not recommending any changes and dr dean will stand for any questions you may have do we have any questions so madam chair this is just the first read and uh if there are no changes then we will just present that in the consent agenda consent agenda for the next board meeting all right thank you uh next g2 dr kellis thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet dr polling will introduce this item good evening madam chair members of the board cabinet and audience i'd like to call up mrs marcy hessler principal at countryside for her presentation tonight all right good evening um chair chapman and members of the board members of cabinet community and guests in the audience my name is marcy hessler i've been the proud principal at countryside elementary school for the past eight years and since this is my last presentation on behalf of countryside this evening i did ask some members of our staff to show up tonight because they are the ones that really are in the trenches and do all of the wonderful miracles each and every day for all of our students so i just wanted to introduce them real quick right over here that's everybody from countryside um that wanted to come tonight so there we are so countryside elementary school right now actually we had six more students register this morning so we are probably at 576 plus our school colors are maroon and gold our mascot is the coyote and you can see the beautiful coyote up there our signature program is the whole child we look at strong hearts strong minds and strong bodies so we address all areas of our children in our school opportunities that we saw this year are merging two schools into a k-4 school that was a big undertaking that took place way last spring so we had both ashton ranch teachers and countryside teachers get together get to know each other start doing some planning during the summer we did the big move lots of boxes and and lots of things going back and forth and then starting off the school year with all of our families blending into one school so it's been an adventure it's been a lot of fun and we can honestly say at this point we are all coyotes and very very proud and then on our for this year's asaasa test we are looking at optimizing our growth again as we will share in our celebrations we yielded high growth last year in fact we had so many points we were hoping to give some away but they won't let us do that so we maximized our points with growth and that was in every category every every student um and then we of course and you've heard this theme throughout the year we're not happy with our proficiency scores at all and so that has been a big focus this year for us going from having grades three through eight to only three through four the pressure is on for us um for that aasa test and the data from that celebrations our first celebration um gross scores we like were amazed at at just all the work every sub-pop every grade level every category we maximized growth and and our kids really rose to the occasion and our teachers really did a good job of teaching standard by standard skill by skill kid by kid and it showed with our growth our other celebration is creating a new k-4 seaside culture we have had more opportunities for kids to be involved in clubs at grades three and four it's really just incredible watching our broadcasting club they do a weekly announcement and we had third and fourth graders and they are very charismatic on camera and do a wonderful job our stucco third and fourth grade i will tell you fourth graders want to do maximum work they are begging for more to do so it's really nice to to have them working and wanting to be a part of things we have a gardening club we have a book club we have an incredible choir and drumming club that's headed up by our music teacher mrs hewitt in the audience she's really brought the love of music back and for the first time ever i think everybody showed up to our winter choir concert and it was a it was a sold out crowd our third celebration is implementing pbis we are in training year one um we've had kind of a mixed bag of what our positive reinforcement has been so now we've formalized it through pbis and our team has been working very hard uh to get that ready for roll out next year and then our fourth celebration we've had addition of a data specialist additional reading specialist and a math interventionist and that has really made a big difference in helping our teachers dig deep for data looking at kid by kids standard by standard having those extra brains in the circle really have helped our teachers it's made it easier and to spend the time looking at data and understanding it at a deeper level and then number five we were one of the first schools to get our student services technician position filled and our gentleman has been doing a wonderful job working with our students processing behavior choices looking at more positive behavior choices and moving forward with that so it's made a big difference on our campus this past couple of months and oops i think i turned it off nope there we go um so focus for the year first of all building that new culture um was our number one priority um asaasa prep we've been doing intentional targeted instruction and now we've really amped that up because we are just a few weeks from the start of those tests we have coaching and support via our data analysis instructional coaching and our prep connect so we are able to sit down speak with our grade levels speak with all the people in the room and really maximize what we are going to do for all of our students and then we've had our plc plus focus for teachers this year so with that i will entertain any questions thank you mrs hessler all right any i just yeah sorry my voice is a little in and out um when you when you just talked about the increasing the proficiency scores but you but you mentioned that you had a lot of growth so can you tell us a little bit about that like the targeted growth each individual student when they take the test in third grade get their benchmark score and from there they get that growth component and so they predict other students how much they're going to grow from year to year so our kids are hitting their growth targets but that proficiency score that's always a moving target every year so we don't know what that score is until after the test is over and so that's the passing rate so we have students who have gone from minimally or from minimally proficient to partially proficient students are moving up the categories but they're not quite hitting that proficiency score gotcha but you see you mentioned that that the huge growth scores and so can you give us like an example like were they five or ten percent oh we we had actually um one grade level was like in the 20 um it's also broken down not just by grade level and from year to year but also by the categories so we had students who were in the highly proficient category and they showed um high they have high growth medium growth low growth and every category bumped up so we had double digits in in all of those categories there is a max point allowance of 50 points and i think we're at 56 or 57 points in that area they also look at ell um ess all of those areas as well so our kids despite the pandemic they came in they learned our teachers really came to school every single day working and doing what's right for for our students that's great um and that was for third and fourth uh it was for last year was grades three through eight oh okay okay yeah so um this year we only have our third and fourth grade gotcha so that's why i'm saying we're pushing a little bit harder this year because we don't have the big grade span we used to thank you so much thank you and i'm going to go it's my birthday so thank you no no not yet no no no no i just had a just a couple of quick things when i was at your school last month um and i think i had shared with both you and ms hill that uh your cafeteria was one of the quietest cafeterias i had ever heard and of course your sst was in there and they were very courteous they were they were um extremely it was quiet it was a little too quiet obviously for for a cafeteria because you know kids let loose and then they they want to eat and they talk and because they haven't seen each other but the addition of your sst has made such a big difference in your dish in your district in your school oh definitely um he is able to help our students who need that extra assistance with behavior whether it's at recess in the cafeteria in a classroom and he's able to process with the students you know what's going on what do you need let's take a look at your behavior what could you choose differently and and who are you affecting you know not just yourself but who else is being affected by your behavior and it's really just awesome to have that extra body because it used to be michelle and i and now we we have that extra person so it gives us more people to help our kids that's that's excellent and uh congratulations it's your birthday march baby's rule that's right yesterday dr dean yes so congratulations for everything i don't have a question i just have a comment besides happy birthday coming to your school and reading the student escorts they were awesome and mine must have thought that i was going to wander because he would not leave me i kept saying i'm really okay i go and he goes no he took this very very serious but it was so cute and talking to him i just wanted to tell you that it was adorable to have these kids escort us around well thank you very much i appreciate it so i do have one more question whenever you're finished um so i'm i'm i love the growth what do you think attributed to the growth such big growth scores what what is it that you and your staff were doing to gain such grounds well what we did you know besides everything through the fall semester in january in february we basically put everything on hold and we said let's take a look at our standards let's take a look at the skills let's take a look at the dok levels let's take a look at what the kids need and really not just through rti but that small group teaching within the classroom our teachers were very committed to that and so all the kids got that reteaching for the areas that they really needed and then the kids that were able to do extension were able to do their extensions so it really was that drill down to the individual student that just gave us the most bang for our buck that's great thank you all right and happy birthday oh thank you thank you i'm going to go have a margarita [Laughter] wait i'll be right there [Applause] thank you mrs hessler now we have sundown mountain dr kellis thank you madam chair dr pauline will introduce this one madam chair dr polling is throwing his voice this evening madam chair members of the governing board dr kellis members of cabinet community this evening it's my pleasure to welcome sundown mountain alternative program principal bobby lockhart to speak about our outstanding high school alternative program good evening madam chair members of the governing board cabinet dr kellis i'm bobby lockhart the proud principal of sundown mountain and also the proud principal of high school but tonight we're focusing strictly on sunday mountain i've been at sundown mountain for just about a year and a half now and first i want to acknowledge the extraordinary team that i have at sundown mountain i know you hear every principal come up and say that i have an amazing team of relentless educators not just a teaching staff but also the office and support team and our counselor and teaching team it's often said that it takes a village and it certainly does and we have an extraordinary village by design um at who we are i need to learn to use this i told diana i'll probably mess this up um who we are as i said we're relentless educators we do whatever it takes to get those seniors across the finish line our enrollment is currently 188 at the high school and seven middle school students just to to offer a little bit of information on that very different programs the middle school students do typically come to us for disciplinary reasons they're there for a 45 day placement and we've had extraordinary success this year with them um the high school students typically come in their junior year or senior year and like i say we're at 188 right now we do have capacity for 220 fourth quarter we're always a little bit lower because they have the opportunity to finish at their home school rather than start and only earn two credits at sundown in the fourth quarter our colors are blue and orange we do not we we do have a mascot we're called the eagles we don't really use it but uh my my counselor miss jones is after me to get us to bring back a program we had there before called soaring eagles so we are looking into doing that the student council talked to dr kellis about perhaps changing the name of the mascot so we're looking at that as well we are a credit recovery program students come to us credit deficient like i said typically juniors and seniors mostly seniors but we do have the occasional sophomore students have fallen behind at their home school they they were not successful in the comprehensive high school and they come to us and we show them success opportunities and challenges our campus set up the staff likes to think that's a challenge i personally love it because we are a small and mighty group we have 20 total classrooms but we are landlocked a little bit we don't have room for for more growth there as you know sundown returned to its original home well not its original home it did used to be next to district office way back 20 years ago but it was moved to shadow ridge where it did a short time then it went out to where asante currently is and it was returned about two years ago we call it a no-fluff classrooms and we have a small cafeteria we did at a student commons this year thanks to ischool student apathy has been difficult since 2020.
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good evening i'm going to call this meeting to order dr foley roll call please president keller members of the board please let the records show that board members are present mrs reese is unable to join us this evening yes thank you very much we are going to have a moment of silence and i'd like for the higley family to keep the family of rodney young in their thoughts and prayers right now and then that will be followed by the pledge of allegiance we love a full house welcome everyone um i move that we approve the agenda second all those any questions all those in favor aye aye motion carries 4-0 we're going to move on to one of our favorite parts of our meetings and that's the superintendent's report president kaler members of the board we're going to start with one of our very favorite things we have lots of celebrations but tonight we're going to start with points of pride and we're going to invite the administration from bridges mr bickle and mr berg to come up and help us celebrate our bobcat points of pride yeah thank you dr foley okay president kaler vice president anderson members of the board cabinet dr foley thank you for this opportunity i would like to invite up aaron fonsbeck for our first point of pride [Applause] mrs fonzbeck is a second grade teacher on our campus and she is one of the most incredible human beings one can encounter and we are lucky enough to have her at bridges mrs fonsbeck's classroom is built upon a foundation of relationships as she strives to ensure every single student is loved and cared for every single year sitting atop the relational foundation is aaron's ability to deliver top-notch engaging and differentiated instruction day in and day out students in mrs fonsbeck's classroom grow immensely every single year and it's due to her ability to meet their individual needs as she does so in a manner that helps foster love for learning around campus mrs fonsbeck has forged lasting relationships friendships and has garnered the respect of her peers personally i know i can always count on aaron's words of encouragement and positivity making the tough days feel a little lighter and that's happened a lot lately so thank you aaron fonsbeck is stellar and beyond deserving of being the bridges elementary certified point of pride this school year thank you aaron so we have a gift for you and a certificate oh you got this okay you got him okay great i'm behind yes who would you like or who did you bring with you today i brought my husband travis and three of our five kids um elise burnley and kate [Applause] former bobcats too [Applause] next i would like to invite up michaela lewis [Applause] michaela lewis has had the pleasure of serving as the bridges elementary school pto president throughout throughout the last two years and if you weren't watching there's been some things going on so mckellar has helped pull our staff through these tumultuous two years despite the challenges presented recently she has demonstrated strong leadership fantastic communication skills flexibility and exemplary creativity resulting in our campus having one of the best pto school relationships and success i have ever seen our pto has been instrumental in helping us innovatively take strides to return to normal through community events fundraisers restaurant nights and teacher appreciation activities that have been thoughtfully planned and perfectly executed your attention to detail is immaculate mckellar's impact in all of these realms have been has been nothing short of extraordinary as she has kept the pto intact functioning and flourishing during this challenging time i and the bridge's staff look forward to hopefully working with mckellar for many more years congratulations michelle on being our point of pride [Applause] my whole family my husband and then i've got two at bridges one at saseman uh preschool and then i've got one at soseman middle school and one at higley high so all of us [Applause] congratulations you [Applause] [Music] miss donna hagen please come up [Applause] so i have the pleasure of introducing donna she is our admin clerk here at bridges i still remember during donna's interview for the administrative clerk position she shared us uh with us at her previous job that they called her mama donna well donna is continually demonstrating that this name perfectly suits her as she has adopted about 740 bridges students donna's innate ability to build relationships is on display each and every day as students and parents come into the office donna truly cares about all students and does whatever is needed for them over the past few years don is also becoming known as the horse whisperer the sub whisperer i'm sorry i believe that i'm sorry the sub whisper oh yeah yeah i messed that up um so using her friendly positive caring demeanor she works miracles almost every day to make sure we we have enough substitute teachers i appreciate all of your hard work and energy you put into making sure the teachers students and parents needs are met thank you for everything you do for the bridges community [Applause] thank you everyone i brought my husband over there who's taking pictures hi my daughter's home sick thank you so much [Music] [Applause] and our student point of pride winner is jacob richardson [Applause] jacob is an extremely hard-working student who is excelling in all areas of his studies jacob always has a positive outlook and a positive attitude towards school he advocates for himself to achieve his goals but also helps others to achieve their their goals he is caring kind responsible and a friend to everyone he always has a smile on his face he is a great example to his peers at school as he sets an example of excellence in behavior cooperation and is thoughtful in his interactions with others jacob makes every class he is in better we are honored to have students like jacob at bridges great job jacob [Applause] thank you to all my parents and everyone who supported me thus [Applause] thank far [Applause] okay thank you bridges now we're excited to have hta we're gonna have miss bacon and mrs day come on up so that we can celebrate hca [Applause] and i will help hold i'll help hold i'm happy to help president kaler members of the board good evening i'm karen bacon i'm the proud principal of higley traditional academy losing my voice but um yeah i'm here tonight we're here tonight to recognize four valuable members of our team um we could not do it without them our entire team is amazing these four people sort of deserve an exceptional recognition this evening so i would like to start with christine zimmerman [Applause] christine is our office manager and custodian and bus bus organizer and picture lady and dot dot dot right everything in the world um she's been our office manager at hta and she's the most deserving of this recognition and she is the glue that holds us together in the front office she's kind and patient very patient with me knowledgeable she makes exceptional effort to ensure that things run smoothly with our budget i am the best spender in the district um obtaining coverage for classrooms ensuring that staff members have what they need as far as supplies and other requests and she's such an important member of our team we're so grateful that she's at hta so you want to talk about who you brought with you tonight let's let everybody clap for you first so um i brought my husband and my two kids with me who both have already graduated from williamsfield so we're a higley family thank you okay [Music] [Applause] all right i'm gonna go ahead i'm amanda day the assistant principal at hta and i get the privilege of announcing our teacher for points of pride and it is miss nicole payne come on up [Applause] congratulations so in the short time that i've been at hta um miss payne has gone above and beyond for her students academically behaviorally any idea i throw at her she is like let's do it let's go and she just is so open-minded to everything that we put in front of her so i appreciate your hard work and your dedication and i want to share a little bit more about what miss payne's classroom looks like and how committed she is to her students so the students in nicole's classroom absolutely flourish she meets the needs of each one of her students with her differentiated teaching practices and her data proves it year after year she is masterful at building strong and positive relationships with her students their families and our team here on campus she can often be found writing personal notes to her students leaving gifts or inspirational yard signs in front of their yards for her students just because nicole is an amazing teacher and a beautiful person inside and out and we are super lucky to have you [Applause] oh sure so i brought my mom and my sister and my son [Applause] spencer cutest clothes [Applause] our next point of pride for hta is our pto president jen keys [Applause] jen and i have known each other for a really long time we used to teach together in another district not to be named but she is an amazing pto president because she's a teacher and she gets how schools operate and she supports us every every day she is our president that has served on our board for a number of years being an educator herself she knows the unique needs of a school and she's able to share her knowledge and expertise with our parents support community she's always looking for ways to enhance our school experience for our families embraces opportunities to serve students and staff thank you jennifer for all you do to help it make hta a very special place [Applause] and her student at my school is in sixth grade so i have to let her go next year who do you have no i have the hca staff here with me [Applause] all right now we have a special student that we want to recognize for points of pride so mr dylan abbott come on up here [Applause] all right so we are going to read about dylan and what a rock star he is in class do you want to tell them what grade you're in okay what grade are you in first grade so dylan's teacher mrs wubanev said that dylan is definitely among the most genuinely hardworking respectful and kind young men that she has ever had the pleasure of teaching in her career dylan loves to learn and it shows in everything that he does when she begins a new topic dylan lights up with a huge smile and she can see the light bulbs going on almost immediately his hand shoots up his eyes begin to twinkle and the most thoughtful ideas take flight in our classroom his thoughts ignite ideas and before long we have prepared a whole unit of study in class congratulations dylan for being hta's student points of pride all right so dylan is going to share with you who he brought tonight okay okay um i'm with my parents my sister and my grandma [Applause] all right we're gonna take a picture [Applause] thank you points of pride this is our favorite part of the night but here's what we also say to families we know you have a busy night and lots going on so you are more than welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting however we also know you have busy days and school is still happening tomorrow so if you'd like to leave at this time please feel free to do so and thank you for joining us tonight and we'll join the rest we'll be beginning again in just a little bit [Music] hmm um president kaler members of the board as we look to the upcoming month we are happy to share that next week we begin our spring break on the second week of our spring break we're also thrilled to share that we are hosting the gilbert state of the town address that will be at hcpa and i know several of you will be joining me there we're delighted to host this um and april is the next month coming up is super busy we have a board retreat where your administrative team is really excited to share with you the update on the progress that has been happening district-wide on several key initiatives and there will be lots of updates to share we also have our board meeting and as we begin um to in the end of april during the week of teacher appreciation we'll be celebrating our teacher of the year so lots coming up these are just a few highlights um but that concludes the superintendent's report with upcoming events thank you dr foley we're going to move on to board comments mrs wilson or mrs schultz michelle you want to go first okay hear me now okay i had the opportunity um along with uh president kaler um to attend the chinese new year celebration a little delayed this year and it was amazing to see all those kids back on the stage and see the dragon not one but three times and we had town council members uh who attended which was awesome um as well as admin and it was a great event and i'm so happy it's back and i also miss richards love the um activities and the food trucks that happened beforehand this year and then i also was able to attend uh the cheer for the elementary uh kids cheer and um that was amazing it was overflowing at williams field with parents from every single school the cheer program has grown so much my daughter's in sixth grade and when she was in kindergarten it was small and now there's at least 20 30 kids on each one of the teams and so it's amazing to see everyone and the best buddies carnival which miss wilson and president taylor and i were able to attend on this past friday at higley and that was an amazing event it was a little bit windy and so some of the tents had to go but it was a wonderful event to be able to see that president kaler i was able to go to gateway point their family fun night last wednesday and that was an absolute fabulous event with so many parents and so many kids there if they filled their little courtyard full sorry i don't know what's going on with my mic i just want to thank gateway for all the hard work and the teachers and everyone who stopped out because it was fantastic thank you yes springtime there's a lot of events we could go to a different event every single night of the week so any chance we can get out there and see the fruition of all of your hard work we are grateful we are going to go on to request to speak and we have several speakers tonight so let's get started we value input from our constituents this time has been set aside for anyone from the audience who wishes to address the board please remember this is not an appropriate venue to evaluate discuss or criticize district personnel policy keb provides a process for complaints about personnel speakers should be aware that false statements about individuals may result in civil liability members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore pursuant to ars 38-431.01h action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date and please make sure you limit your remarks to just three minutes we're going to start tonight with cason platt [Music] you may come forward cason hi um i just was made aware of this meeting and i just wanted to talk about my teacher mr prazo andrew perazo and i wanted to let know that this has deeply affected higley's student board and i've never been to one of these i don't know if i'm really supposed to talk about what but i just would like everybody to know that he has impacted his community deeply in the way he cares about his students and the way that he's made sure that we are taken care of in everything and all that we need and i've never seen any teacher advocate for mental health the way this man has and i have never felt so hurt in the way like he speaks to me and the way that he speaks to all of his students he makes sure that we are cared about and that he gives us slack for what we need in our day-to-day lives and i have never in all 12 years i'm a senior and i've never felt like any any teacher has ever wanted to understand me and he he does and he greets me with a smile every single day and i have i i want him to make sure that we he knows that whether he comes back to higley or other action is taken but we care about perazzo we want him to stick around and that's that's my statement thank you next up we have kaden crosby good afternoon um i'm also speaking on the same topic i just want to give a little insight on who perazzo is and how great of a man he is a great family man so hello i'm a senior at higley high school and i'm up here today to get background on andrew perazzo all these students that are with me today are here with me in support of this wonderful teacher but he did not feel like a teacher to us in my 12 years of school not one teacher has impacted me the way pirazzo has and i know past classmates and many others could say the same now kids dread school and is a known fact and it'll always be one but a teacher like perazzo breaks a barrier between just being a teacher and being a friend he's a mentor and someone people look forward to seeing every day my least favorite class in school was english it's always been i've never been an english guy okay i've always been a math math nerd okay and i just never found it fun it was one of those classes i wish i did not have to take but mr prazov changed my narrative on english somehow it turned into the only class i looked forward to i remember when i got my schedule and i got andrew perazo i was more than excited i heard nothing but good things about him past classmates made him seem like the most amazing person they have ever met from having him from from having him for this school year they were not lying he's a family man involved in his church and lets us know he loves us loves us as students no one is perfect and these words and all the other students may not change the outcome but all we ask is that you please put our thoughts into consideration thank you for letting me speak today and appreciate your time thank you [Applause] young men and women i know it's not easy to come to a board meeting to speak so we thank you for your input we're going to move on we have mr charles warner did you want to go last mr warner did you want to go last oh i'm okay okay well then i printed off my notes and left them on my desk hi president kaler governing board members superintendent uh fowler and cabinet members my name is charles warner i teach high school at uh i teach math at williamsfield high school that's my 21st year in the district we've had five superintendents five hr directors i've worked under eight principles god only knows how many assistants um in three different schools and i've been on meet and confer for about the past 10 off and on for 10 plus years [Music] through that time i've seen that the the the district grow and really heal from some times of like posturing and politicking and that kind of thing to a real sense of community and sense of cooperation and i appreciate that i know that hea one of our main goals is to attract and retain the best teachers admin and support staff anywhere and i want to work next to the very best teachers at my school every day and i i really believe that the the issue you're considering an item eight three is showing that how much you care about the teachers and the staff and and admin and um will do a lot for making this more of a destination place and district and recruiting than it is a uh like a stepping stone to higher places so again thank you for the opportunity of being here and for all you do and service to our community thank you mr warner next up we have lori pasqual did i say that right i hope pascal good evening and thank you for allowing me to share my story with you my name is lori pasqual and this is my 22nd year of teaching my first 13 years was in virginia and back then there were salary steps yay to a yearly bonus then came the salary freezes the rifts maybe a one and two percent raise here and there and then i relocated to arizona almost 10 years ago and yes all of these years i've been at the same school here in higley despite knowing that i would take a significant pay cut i accepted the job in higley because well i believed in what was coming for the district and yes i do love my job since 2018 things have really changed in such a positive way i feel that the perceptions of a teacher's job and the value of a good teacher has really changed for the better there has been such an increase of support from our wonderful parents our administrators the school board our pto and all of the teachers who continue to be there for each other one year in in and out each and every year through the good and the bad i just wanted to say thank you for all of your continued support to keep such great teachers that are here with us and as they can be almost like a second family so thank you [Applause] thank you so much next up i have jessica d'ambrosio hi everyone madam president born cabinet my name is jessica dambrozio i've been a teacher for 17 years i started my first three in scottsdale but i've been at higley traditional academy for the last 14 years i absolutely love everything that higley is i've watched it grow we bought in 2008 in higley park from chandler and made our way over here as the community developed and now i live across from what is now going to be epicenter so i'm super jazzed about that i have two sons one is a freshman at williamsfield the other is a seventh grader at cooley and i just have to say that i love higley i love everything about where i live where i work who i work for and who i work with so i wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you tonight for just putting such an investment of your time your energy your thoughts your prayers for teachers for students for administration i wouldn't have known it 17 years ago but some of my very best friends are the people that i get to work out or work with day in and day out and it's not just because they're cool or they're fun to laugh with it's because we all have this shared investment in these little people that may or may not remember us you know in 20 years i hope they do but um i just wanted to say thank you um i know what goes into teaching and what keeps teachers teaching and it's supportive administration who you know really my administrator could do my job hands down i could never do her job what she has miss bacon has had for the last two years through unnerving times with nervous parents had to gracefully respond to i'm just really impressed with her with melissa garland who was our assistant principal before for years and now amanda day so there's a there's a unity between each and every one of us and we we work off of each other so i know there's some really big agenda items today and i'm just asking that you continue to support us and help retain really good teachers and amazing administrators so thank you for all you do and thank you for your time thank you [Applause] mrs lisa lewandowski good evening president kaler members of the board dr foley cabinet my name is lisa lewandowski and i am a math teacher at higley high school i have been for a little more than 19 years and a proud member of aga for about that same amount of time i am really proud to serve on the meet and confer team and we have such an outstanding team this year i'm really proud of them the level of collaboration is just amazing we go in every time we meet with this shared goal that higley is the best place for students to learn the best place for teachers to work and i think we've done a lot of good work this year and i'm just really proud to be a part of that i want to thank you for all your hard work i know that what you do and what you probably have to put up with can be very difficult sometimes and so i just want to thank you for that i want to thank you for considering agenda item 8.2 and specifically the raise that's in there i think it would just go even further to make this really a district that wants to attract and keep the best teachers and we have some outstanding teachers i'm very proud to work with them and i'm just proud to be a member of this district and i just want to thank you for your consideration on that and your hard work thank you thank you [Applause] heather balch hello good evening governing board president mrs kaler um board members cabinet dr foley thank you all for having me here my name is heather balsh i'm a speech language pathologist and i've been in our district for 19 years i have one graduate from higley high and a 10th grader over there as well i wanted to share with you how fortunate i feel to work in our district higley unified school district is unique in how well the higley education association which i am a very proud member of works with our district administration our hea members focus on improving the work environment for our certified educators as well as our support staff the relationship between the members of our meet and confer team has been extremely beneficial this year for all of our employees we have worked diligently to make positive changes for all for the future for this year and for the years to come and i thank you for cultivating such a positive relationship between our education association and our administration here in the district tonight the board has the opportunity to vote to approve a seven percent raise for teachers that is like yay we've got to just scream um and it's for all employees which is huge in the past certain groups have have not received equitable raises and that kind of leaves you feeling a little bit crummy and i was one of those at one point but this raise would just create equity across all of our employees which is just huge and says a lot for our district this is extremely important to people who work outside the traditional classroom like me but have a similar impact on our education of our students uh thank you in advance for voting yes and on behalf of everyone who works with our students our community and our higley education association thank you all thank you [Applause] tina quinones good evening president kaler board members dr foley and cabinet members my name is tina quinones i'm a sixth grade math teacher at chaparral elementary and i've worked for our district for about 20 years i'm here to speak about the agenda item 8.3 which specifically mentions the seven percent raises for all our staff we have a great meet and confer team that is committed and works very hard to do what's best for our district and for all its staff members and which includes our students also the seven percent um array shows all other districts um as well as our own staff and our own community that higley unified school district values their teachers values their support for support professionals staff and of course our administrators who without great leaders we can't have great schools so it's been a rough couple of years and all our staff all of our staff support our support supporting professionals our admin and all our teachers have been here daily supporting each other doing what's best again for schools for our districts for our students and for each other other districts and their staff are seeing what higley is doing they've been seeing it for the past few years since redford and where june and i were on aea calls and we're in this little higley district don't say a whole lot of it's nice when they're asking what is happening at higley and when we're being talked about in a very positive way people are asking what higley is doing for their teachers for their support staff for administration and i think that's that says a lot please vote yes for the seven percent raise for all our staff for our teachers our supporting professionals and for administration thank you thank you [Applause] next up we have jill skulrud good evening president koehler vice president anderson board members dr foley cabinet members thank you for having me here i am jill skalrood i am a teacher at this wonderful district while i was teaching here we ended up moving to yuma and when we moved back we looked to come back not just to work in hindi but to live in higley because higley is very important to us two of our children have graduated from higley our kids were involved i i teach orchestra at i'm a traveling teacher so i'm actually at three of our schools and i'm also a member of the meet and confer team and i'm also here to speak about agenda item 8.2 which specifically mentions the seven percent raise to all staff our mean comfort team as you've already heard has worked very hard this year and i'm so thankful for the opportunity we have had to come up with such a plan that will benefit all staff this will make us even more competitive in recruiting and retaining quality teachers administrators paraprofessionals office staff bus drivers lunch people everyone that make up our amazing schools i know for myself the seven percent raise would mean not having to work a second job as i currently do and i'll be leaving to go to in just a few minutes we would become one of the most attractive districts as we recognize how important every one is please vote yes for our seven percent raise show your support in a very tangible way to all our staff especially after all the additional workload since returning to in-person schools in september 2020 you know as you know we have been back long before most other schools in our state and our nation and this raise speaks loudly that higley unified school district is the place to be go team higley thank you thank you [Applause] and june blaine good evening president kaler board members dr foley cabinet members my name is june blaine i've been employed in the higley district for almost two decades and i'm here tonight to encourage you to vote yes on the proposed salary increase this evening i would also like to publicly thank the meet and confer team for the continuous work that is done to improve working conditions benefits and compensation for staff i feel the meet and confer team has always had an end goal of making all district employees feel valued by voting yes on the proposed salary increase you are sending a clear message that we are valued thank you for your time and consideration [Applause] thank you all for speaking tonight and um yeah we're gonna keep moving on any other comments i move that we approve consent agenda item 6.1 to 6.12 second any questions or comments concerning consent let's go um in the consent agenda there is uh um an overnight travel for um uh deca in here that goes against ergo's is a making an exception to a policy that the board put in place to allow more school days um but there are exceptions to this policy depending on what's happening and what's going on that the board can make so that's what we're voting on now so despite it being a policy for a couple days we are voting to make it an exception any other comments or questions all those in favor aye aye is that all motion carries 4-0 all right we have a couple information items first we're going to start with mr tyler moore show again here he is 7.1 uh good evening president kaler and members of the board i have a very brief presentation as our second review of our capital outlay budget this extends just a little bit on the first review that we did back on february 9th and i just have a few updates so again some of the highlights of the 2023 capital budget include no anticipated additional covert relief funding uh we talked about this we fully exhausted any cover to release funding that we've had and the existing covered relief funding with sr3 has been already budgeted for and so we don't anticipate any new covered relief funding affecting either our mno budget or our capital budget going into next fiscal year second we are realizing an increase of average daily membership and as you know that is how our budget is state budget is funded by average daily membership we saw an increase of approximately 2.2 percent that not only affects our m o budget but it affects our capital budget as well so we should see a slight increase in our capital budget on third district additional assistance also known as capital has been fully restored by the governor for the second year in a row as noted when we started to look at the aggregate exponential limit this was one of the issues that was pushing that state limit above its exceeded threshold but again this is just fully restored back to the 2008 2009 recession error cuts um so we just now have um been fully restored back to those um 2809 levels number five there we're reversing the plans to reduce the mno to capital transfer this refers to the lease payment in which we proposed in the 2021 bond but we are now since that bond was unsuccessful we are now reverting back to how the district has previously paid for those leases which is a transfer from our mno budget to capital and that's to the tune of approximately 4.4 million and the last one we are emphasizing a reduced capital carry forward so we're allocating our capital budget to nintendo cap intended capital needs and i'll go over that on the next slide here so as presented on a february 9th meeting this is our entire capital budget for fiscal year 2023.
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